bump #58: this path

²¹ Your ears will hear sweet words behind you: “Go this way. There is your path; this is how you should go” whenever you must decide whether to turn to the right or the left.

-Isaiah 30:21

This life is full of decisions. Easy ones, challenging ones, and the decisions you put off as long as possible. Marrying Andrew was the easiest decision. No brainer. Best decision I ever made. Picking a college major, not so easy, but ultimately inconsequential. Plus, think of how "well rounded" (read indecisive and scholastically shallow) I am for having studied everything from computer programming to flat pattern making. Ironically, I don't know how to operate my mac or change the needle in my sewing machine. Guess I slipped through the cracks in academia land. Deciding to move to Texas was a toughie, but it was a case of God closing doors and opening a window.  A hot, humid window to a perpetual sauna, but you get the idea. Looking back, it was really good for us. It made us stronger. I hope to one day be able to say the same for infertility. Obviously minus the "really good" part and emphasis on the "stronger." Some decisions change the course of your whole life.

Deciding to start a family was an easy decision.

At first.

And then it wasn't.

The last 3 years of not knowing how, or when, or if that "family" will ever happen for us has been the worst. I try to live a life without regrets, without worrying "if only we had done this or that". But I regret a lot of things. I regret silly things like stock piling ovulation predictors and believing as long as I was ovulating each month there wasn't a problem. I regret buying gender neutral baby clothes the day we threw out the birth control. (Although if I'm being honest, shabby chic pink rose onesies are not the definition of gender neutral. I will still make a case for the leopard print, though.) I regret bargaining with God... please tell me I'm not the only one who has done this. God, please, please let us have a baby! If you let me get pregnant I will shout from the rooftops how wonderful and amazing you are. I'll be that obnoxious girl on Facebook that starts all status updates with "Praise the Lord...", "God is so good!" I'll read the Bible everyday, all day, well at least cover to cover in a year. And other much sillier promises that amount to me sounding like a whiney brat. It doesn't work that way, and I regret thinking that I could change God's mind. Obviously this is all part of His plan and I regret not trusting him fully and failing in my faith daily.

I do praise Him though, because His faithfulness is new every morning,

and I surely need it.

This week was rough. The kind of week where you question everything. Is this the right job? Is this the right path?  Are we where we're supposed to be?  Do my shoes match? Seriously questioning everything. And then I opened my Bible, because God didn't get back to me on that whole "if I read my Bible everyday for a year" thing, so I'm still holding out :) and I read that verse in Isaiah.

"Sweet words behind you... this is your path."

And then there was calm. The calm that only comes from the Holy Spirit. Only He can take this mess of a week, this mess of the last few years, and breathe new life into it.

I didn't choose this path. Let's get real, nobody chooses it!  But I do choose to believe that God is at work here, that "He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion."

So I continue on this path.