10 Apr Celebrating?

Yesterday Colby and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. Lately, celebrating isn’t something that has happened much around here. Instead of celebrating, it’s been a month of mourning and grieving. It’s hard to celebrate when your heart is so heavy.

It’s crazy how even though our world completely stopped for a few weeks, everyone around us was still celebrating. My sweet friend celebrated her wedding that I was supposed to be a bridesmaid in, my other friend celebrated her 30th birthday that I was supposed to attend, and my other friend celebrated at her baby shower that I was supposed to host. Even though our world stopped, it was evident the rest of the world just kept on celebrating. While we had the complete worst day of our whole lives some of those most dear to me were having the best day of theirs. It boggles my mind that God is sovereign over every detail of every day including weddings, baby showers, birthdays, and death.

So how do you go about celebrating special occasions just like the rest of the world has been and you always have in the past all while you are in a time of grieving?

It’s so easy to skip over the celebrating. It’s so easy to withdraw and roll up in a ball and cry. It’s so easy to throw in the towel and give up on my ministry and desire to become a mom. It’s so easy to stop communicating with Colby and dismiss the fact that another year of marriage is upon us. Isn’t that just what the enemy wants – to continue to destroy us and make us miserable? But, then I think of how amazing Shawn and Aki are and their desire to seek love. I remind myself that every day is a choice and we can redirect our thoughts and choose to make the most of the day (while grieving) or throw a pity party and not get out of bed. And, because of that we still celebrated. Just as Kai would have wanted. Just as Jesus would have wanted.

We chose to find the joy in the mourning.

We had a quiet evening, made dinner at home, and watched a movie. My heart remained heavy, but we still thanked the Lord for His blessings. Because although on the outside it might seem like he is not doing anything good, that is far from the truth. He remains by our side and continues to spoil us with his love.

The past 3 years haven’t been what I thought they would be. I didn’t think that 70% of our marriage we would be going through this trial of infertility. But, even though it’s not how I would have written the story, it’s SO much better. I’m thankful for Colby and his heart for Jesus. He smothers me with love every day. He serves me and spoils me and because of his amazingness he makes our marriage so much easy. I’m so thankful for every day we have had together including the basic things like cooking together and our favorite things like traveling the world together.

Although our celebration yesterday isn’t how I envisioned, 2014 isn’t how envisioned, and our 3 years of marriage aren’t how I envisioned them to be I still realize how blessed we are. As we start our 4th year of marriage I’m excited to pursue the Lord and see what He has in store for us. We are trusting that He will restore a double blessing to everything that has been taken away from us. Deuteronomy 30:3

P.S. Please continue to pray for Shawn and Aki – that God would heal their tender hearts.