When the Prayer Changes

There are just some clubs that you don't want to ever find yourself a member of. The Divorced Club. The Person Whose Spouse Died Club. The Person Whose Child Died Club.

Some clubs come with membership fees that require too much of your soul to ever warrant you actually WANTING to be a part of them. But as life would have it, these are clubs that people manage to get into without asking. Without actually signing up to be on the waiting list. Without ever saying, "Yes, please....let me join." Somehow, we manage to find ourselves there anyway.

I am a member of a club that is so small and elite that I actually only know of other members through hear say. It's the "Yesterday I couldn't wait to get this baby out of me, and today I'm praying that it will JUST. STAY. PUT. club."

I became a member on November 16th, 2006. I was hideously pregnant (which, if we're being honest, I was from the first moment that I peed on that little stick...) and I was chomping at the bit to get that little boy out of me. Pregnancy had become painful. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I honestly couldn't wait for my little boy to make his grand entrance. And my prayer sounded something along the lines of "Lord, PLEASE just make him come already! I'm D.O.N.E!"

And then my husband left me.

In whatever amount of time is less than a millisecond, the prayer changed from "Lord, Please make him come out" to "Dear God, NOT YET. PLEASE, NOT YET." And just like that...I was in the club.

I felt compelled to write about this, because tonight I learned of two sweet sisters that I know from college, one of them literally days away from the birth of her first child, whose father just passed away in a shocking accident. Yesterday the prayer was for God to hurry and bring on the birth of this sweet baby girl. Today, it has changed to, "Dear God, NOT YET. PLEASE, NOT YET."

Upon reading the news of the accident and the prayer for A's baby to wait until after the funeral to make her arrival, I found myself in a heap of snot and tears for my friends. For one of them, I am mourning the loss of her father and the relationship that I know she always struggled to have with him. For the other....

...I am mourning the loss of a blissful first childbirthing experience. This is something that she will forever look back on, grateful for the blessing of her precious daughter...but there will always be a cloud of sadness over that day. It will be forever linked to the death of her father. I'm sure God will heal this pain for her, and I'm grateful that she is surrounded by loving family that will celebrate the birth of her baby despite their grief. Please keep them all in your prayers in the coming days.

I still grieve my experience with childbirth. When I think back on it, it is not a happy time for me. It's filled with pain and disappointment, with only a small little pocket of joy in the middle. The little pocket of joy has since grown into the biggest source of blessing in my life...but the experience that brought him here....nothing like what I had spent my life dreaming about.

I don't want to be in this club. I have forgiven Ex a lot of things. I have been supportive of him in his new life. And I am ultimately quite content with mine. And honestly, until this moment I don't think I really realized that I felt this way....but there is a part of me that REALLY HATES HIM for robbing me of my dream of becoming a mommy in peace. REALLY. HATES. HIM. Because this club really sucks. And I am heartbroken to know that there is a new member.

Lord, give her peace before her baby comes. I'm JUST. HERE. BEGGING. YOU...