Our Romans 8:28 Day

I laid on a gurney, in just a thin hospital gown and big huge socks that were to ward off blood clots, the scariest part of surgery it seemed, waiting to be taken back. Waiting for the surgery that we hoped and prayed would restore my fertility. The memories of that day, now three years old, are fuzzy. The rounded corners soft. But I remember my husband standing beside me, and I remember the nurse’s kind eyes. How she held my hand when she told me that something came back in my blood work. The way the words sounded when she formed them—“You’re pregnant.”

I got up off that gurney and walked out of that hospital with life beating in the very place they were planning to invade.

That afternoon, when I should have been recovering in a downtown hospital bed, we waded in the lake while our dogs splashed about and I said to my husband, again and again the words I thought I’d never get to say, “I’m pregnant.”

It was over as quickly as it began, but those days taste sweet to me now. Oh what a gift to have it, for even just a moment.

Those June days in 2009 are marked on a map in my memory.

That weekend, after the end began, we walked to a local festival, and on the way there, I saw one perfect blooming pink peony. I snapped a picture of it, and I knew even then, as I lost our one and only pregnancy that He was at work. That He had to be.

In that flower, in its pink unfolding life, I was reminded that my God is a good God. He’s a mighty God. He’s promised that He works all things for good for those who are called according to His purposes.

And He did.

This weekend we’ll attend that festival again, only this time I’ll carry an 18-month-old toddler on my back. We’ll wave at the parade goers and we’ll share cheese curds and our sweet boy will pet baby animals.

Trusting God to build our family; having to rely completely on Him, because I am physically unable to do it any other way, has been hard. My womb is very literally shut; sealed up by scar tissue. But better my womb than my heart.

A few weeks ago, one perfect deep red peony bloomed in our front yard.

Keep trusting Me, He whispers. I am still working.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose, Romans 8:28. (NIV)