I believe God gave it to me. Why would he want it back?
***
In the Summer of 1987, my mom and I discussed my senior year of high school. We discussed my future. None of my plans aligned with my friends. I felt the pressure to decide.
From the age of twelve, babysitting passed much of my time. I loved children and wanted a house full of my own one day. I cared for as many as four at a time. I experienced everything from sickness to calm and sweet hugs to tantrums.
“What do you want?” she said.
I felt silly answering the question–ashamed that my future desire lacked a diploma or an official title from the local university.
“I want to be a mother. I want to get married and have children. That’s all! Is it bad that I choose only to be a wife and mother?”
Except for two years as a single parent, my mother spent thirty-five years as a wife and mother. She held her role beautifully, not perfect, but available and with great sacrifice. I reaped the benefits of her willingness to be home. She held an important position as counselor, teacher, caregiver, taxi driver, and correctional officer, not really, but she consistently disciplined.
Mom spoke words of encouragement regarding God’s idea of family and his giving of desires for us to follow. I left that conversation believing God placed the desire in me so he would fulfill the desire for me.
Within six years of our conversation about my future, I married. I was determined to birth at least three children.
“I plan to have children before I turn thirty. After thirty, I will be too old to have babies,” I said.
With motherly wisdom, she responded, “Be careful what you say you will do. God may have other plans.”
What other plans could he have? My desire came from him.
Her words of caution echoed in my thoughts in the years following.
***
Surrender—a word I considered for times of war or for criminals.
In church, I sang I Surrender All, but when did it mean God wanted to hold back on fulfilling a desire that he placed in me? Children are a gift from God. Why would he withhold that gift?
If naïvtey paved a path for you to the ways of God, we shared common ground.
False Surrender and Fear
When God places an open door before me, he means for me to walk through it. Or does he?
Five years into my marriage I understood the difficulty of conceiving a child and discovered my husband and I needed medical intervention.
On the surface, my heart seemed surrendered to God’s will for a family. I voiced prayers of “your will, Lord, not mine.” Yet, I avoided anything that suggested a plan other than my desire to have children.
A friend at church invited me to a Bible study in her home.
“I think you will benefit from this study. There is a chapter about spiritual motherhood,” she said.
I went to the Bible study for a couple of weeks, but the busyness of life made it easy for me to avoid the remainder of the lessons that suggested childless women consider spiritual motherhood.
A large corporation in Houston employed me in 2000. God knew what my husband and I needed to grow our family. We asked. He provided. I discovered the medical insurance paid full coverage for the procedure I needed to have children. We began the process of testing and had a plan in place. Our doctor encouraged us to take our already-planned ski vacation to relax before we entered the process of creating a new life. One ski accident and near-death experience later, my husband entered an eight-month treatment for healing, and our doctor advised waiting to grow our family.
Before his injury, he accepted a call to leave his corporate job in Texas for a full-time job in Christian ministry work in Tennessee. For a short time, he straddled the fence of corporate and ministry work for us to walk through the medical door of opportunity for our family.
Waiting periods open opportunities to reflect. As the doors of reflection opened, the door of hope to grow our family closed. It seemed like the door of hope slammed on my desire.
With uncontrollable tears, I sat on her bed. My older sister listened and asked questions to help me face reality.
“Why are you upset about leaving your job?”
She knew my excitement about the move to Tennessee.
“It’s not the job. When I leave, I’m afraid I give up my only opportunity to have children.”
My reply rooted in fear revealed more. I lacked trust in God’s ability to act outside of what I saw as my only option.
We moved within a month of my husband's recovery, in the fall of 2001. The Lord answered my prayer with a closed door and exposed my false surrender and fear-gripped heart.
In 2002 on a beautiful spring day in Chattanooga, I sat alone in our living room. Fear locked my desire tight in its grip. My heart broke for what I lacked but remained unbroken over my sin of fear and doubt. I struggled between my want and God’s will as I returned to the Bible study I once refused to entertain. As I sat tied to my desires, the contents within the book offered freedom in Christ. Freedom arrived through remorse over my sin–a broken place of true surrender–and a willingness to walk through his word and exchange my desire for his.
The puffiness around my eyes reflected the struggle as the breaking took place. The tug of fear, self-desire, and doubt pushed into confession and pulled against acceptance. I grieved the letting go of my desire and the sin that held me in bondage. True surrender meant acceptance of the Lord’s will-acceptance that physical motherhood was outside of his reality for me at that moment and possibly forever.
The utterance of acceptance released me to walk forward in his plan. “Lord, if I never have children, I’ll be okay because your will is better than mine.”
No one displays surrender better than Jesus, who at the will of the Father, lived and died a tortuous death. In the garden, overcome with grief, Jesus pleaded with the Father more than once to let the cup of suffering pass from him (Luke 22:39-46, ESV). Jesus accepted God’s will over his own. His suffering and sacrifice of righteousness allow all people to have peace with God. Yet, God waits for people broken by sin to break in remorse over personal sin.
A Broken and Contrite Heart
In his book, The Calvary Road, Roy Hession describes brokenness for believers in Jesus as a necessity for Jesus to live fully within them. I propose all people need brokenness for Jesus to live fully within them. He says, “Brokenness in daily experience is simply the response of humility to the conviction of God.”
Nathan, a prophet, used a story to expose King David’s sin against Uriah and Bathsheba. Nathan explained that a rich man took and killed a poor man’s only lamb because the rich man was unwilling to use his flock to serve a guest. David, with anger at the injustice, ordered the man to die and restore four times what he had taken from the poor man. Nathan confirmed the rich man as David, who committed adultery with Bathsheba and had Uriah, her husband, sent to the front line in battle where he died. When Nathan finished talking, David said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (1 Sam. 12:1–14, ESV).
Psalm 51:17 reflects David’s response of humility to the conviction of God. A man broken by sin and broken over his sin against God. A man willing to surrender his sinful desires to a holy God.
True surrender required remorse for my fear and doubt. True remorse meant my heart needed to be broken and crushed over my noble, yet selfish desires and false surrender.
At thirty-two, I surrendered my desire for children to the Lord and accepted his desire for me to mentor the children of others. For six years, God taught me the true meaning of joy and contentment in relationships with high school girls. I accepted my childless reality for the joy of investing in the children of others. Surrender and my desire for children coexisted as I learned to be content in whatever circumstance he required.
One of my favorite stories from the Bible is of Hannah. I identified with her wanting and waiting. She experienced taunting I can’t imagine. Her example of freely giving back what God gave her answered my question. She accepted the reality of giving back her firstborn son for the experience of having him for three years.
Surrender isn’t only for times of war and criminals but for those who love God and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28, ESV). God gave me the desire for children as a teenager. He gave it and asked me to give it back. In giving my desires back to God, surrender became an established lifestyle. Giving back willingly what he gave to me taught me to trust him. True surrender granted me experience with God’s character. Doubt and fear dissipated into expectancy and trust in a God who does the impossible.
The Lord waited twelve more years before he answered my prayer and completed our family with a baby boy. At the age of forty-four, the knowledge of God’s character and lesson in surrender while waiting proved more valuable than my noble desire.
©2023 LaDora LaRegina
CallapressPublishing.com published this article on September 21, 2023.