I remember sitting at the bridal shower of a friend as
an ecstatic bride to be myself. As my friend excitedly began to open her saucy gifts
conversations from the married, “experienced” women began to fill the room. I
will never forget the things that were said in that room. Things like, “Oh honey,
you’ll only use that for a week.” and “Oh, you think you are excited now, but it’s
not as great as you think it will be.” and “After a month or so it will just
become something you check off your list of things to do…like a grocery list.”
When my friend and I got back into the car to go home from her shower, we
timidly began to discuss the conversations that had taken place. “Do you think
it’s really that bad?” and “Do you still want to get married?” were some
of the questions we began to discuss. These were Christian women who had
experience; should we heed their warnings?
This, however, was not my first run in regarding
people miserable in their marriages and choices they had made over the years.
My husband and I were told that we would never finish college if we got married
when we did and that we didn’t know what we were getting into. Other women told
me “you just wait; all men are the same. Give it a month and he will treat you
just like every other man treats his wife.” These statements came from hurting
and discouraged people. I get it. I have likely done something similar to some poor soul.
Unfortunately for these people, life did not turn out
quite as they had imagined. In some of these situations, healing has taken
place and God has mended things as only he can. However, as I began to ponder
these situations with current events, I realized that none of them have been
true in my own life. For the record, my husband and I finished college. We have
more we would like to do, but we both did finish. Please excuse my honesty, but
I love EVERY part of my relationship with my husband! We have gone
through rough patches and I do not pretend to have a perfect relationship with
him, nor am I naïve enough to think that our good relationship could not turn
sour quickly. I am thankful for what I have in the friendship I have with my
husband and do not take that for granted. Is life all that we dreamed it would
be five years into our marriage? Uh, NO! Truth is, we have made our very own
set of disasters! We did not need help with that. There have been decisions we
have made that we very quickly saw “woops, that was stupid.” Thankfully, there
ARE people in our lives who listen, dust us off, encourage us, and give us a
pat on the butt to get going again when we make those mistakes (those people
are my parents btw). Point is, they are OUR mistakes! We made them, we get to
own them. YAY!
As we face this new phase in our lives of bringing a
child into the world, we have once again received much advice (a lot
unsolicited). Some has been positive, and maybe it is just me, but I have a tendency
to focus on negative things people say to me. It takes effort to redirect my
focus after someone says something less than positive. I recently read
something in a book that slapped me right in the face. The author posed the
question, “What kind of feelings are you welcoming this baby into the world
with?” Seems like a simple question, but
it got me thinking; and I do have a lot of hormones running wild these days.
However, I sat in tears thinking of the nights and mornings I have actually
cried, (yep, cried) mourning my impending loss of sleep. What can I say, I like
sleep. I thought about all the times I cried while I was puking daily for months.
I thought about the times I have not gone to church because after trying on five
outfits, nothing met my standards of how it was supposed to look on my growing
body. In some ways, I can justify those thoughts. Any change is scary; especially
when it affects every part of your emotional and physical well being.
Truth is, I have conditioned myself by allowing the
negative comments of people to affect how I see my pregnancy. Trent and I lost
one baby early in our marriage. This pregnancy, we thought would result in loss
as well, but God has seen fit to allow me to carry this very precious miracle
up to this point. By the way, EVERY child is a miracle of God and is never a “mistake,”
so quit asking people if “it was planned.” Who cares?! In most cases the person
asking is either being nosy, or trying to figure out if they should be happy or
help in mourning. Just be happy and encourage the mother to be. Every new life
should be celebrated. Anyways, when I consider how God has brought us to this
point, how can I be upset over sickness? It means my baby is alive and well!
How can I get upset over the fact that I am not sleeping more than five hours a
night? This is just a miracle in itself because as I stated before, I do love
sleep; so we will just leave that one as is, a miracle. How can I be upset with
all the little aches and pains occurring in my body? God has fearfully and
wonderfully made my body to change so that my precious child has a way to come
into this world! It’s kind of cool really! Why do women feel the need to
terrify other women about sleeplessness, soreness, pain in feedings? Shall we
talk about child birth? NO, let’s not! Odds are you do not want to tell me a
nice story, but rather your cousin’s sister’s brother’s mother who had the
worst labor and delivery in America! Honestly, I am excited about childbirth
however it may happen, because it means that my husband and I finally get to
meet this little miracle! It makes me sad that it has taken me this long in my
pregnancy to get excited again about all of these little things!
I can’t control what comes out of other people’s mouths, but I can control what I allow to enter my heart. Unfortunately, I have done a lousy job of that so far, but just as my marriage has not turned out the way everyone told me it would be; my pregnancy, birth, and relationship with my children does not have to turn out the way people tell me it will be either. After all, have you EVER known me to do what I am told to do?! ;)
I can’t control what comes out of other people’s mouths, but I can control what I allow to enter my heart. Unfortunately, I have done a lousy job of that so far, but just as my marriage has not turned out the way everyone told me it would be; my pregnancy, birth, and relationship with my children does not have to turn out the way people tell me it will be either. After all, have you EVER known me to do what I am told to do?! ;)
