Promise Fulfilled

It was my third one that week.

I wanted to make sure that the information I was getting was accurate — so I took three.

Third time’s a charm right?!

I followed the instructions carefully as though life depended on it…because it did.

I placed the stick at the edge of my bathroom counter and waited for the strips to determine my fate.

And there they were.

Those two lines that teenage girls fear and grown women seek.

I was pregnant.

Again.

We had just dealt with the loss of a pregnancy a few months back and here we were expecting again.

I didn’t know how to feel.

I was haunted by the ghost of my past pregnancy and the turn of events that had gone so terribly wrong.

As I stood in my bathroom, staring at those two lines, I remembered that night on New Year’s Eve back in 2011.On December 31, my husband and I had put our pride aside and stood at the altar in front of thousands of people while our pastor prayed for couples looking to conceive.

We met again in December of 2012 at that same altar baby in tow.

Then I remembered the charming East Asian doctor who gently explained that the odds of me carrying a pregnancy full term were slim to none due to my fibroids.He had also suggested to surgically remove the unwanted guest from my womb, but even that would be no guarantee.

As I stood in my bathroom, starring at those two lines I remembered how painful and dark April of 2011 and much of May were for me.

How lonely and empty I felt. Those two lines which represented a new life, reminded me of the one I mourned. They reminded me that as much as I thought I was in control I had no control.

As I stood in my bathroom starring at those two lines, I was reminded that despite my feelings of loneliness, my fears and shaken faith, I was never alone. That the One that had always been there was there all along and was the One who brought me through the troubled waters the first time around. I was reminded that He is in control and that I had to be still and know who He is.

And the mere fact that I was staring at those two blue lines shortly was proof that He is.

At that very moment, I chose to believe that I was going to carry this pregnancy through its full nine months. I chose to believe that He knew the plans that He had for me, plans of good and not for disaster. To give me a future and hope.

At that very moment I chose life. The new one growing inside of me and my own.

On New Year’s Eve 2012, my husband and I stood at that altar in our third trimester.

Our house has been a home for the both of us and our daughter Neriah (Light of God) since February 2012.

His promise…it was fulfilled.

Charlotte

image credit: self portrait of Charlotte