Journey Through the Desert

My dear bloggy friends.
I have something to share with you.  I've touched on this before, but it has had so profound an impact on me - I feel I can't emphasize it enough.

If you've been with me for a while, you know that the year I turned 40 was especially hard for me.
At the beginning of that year, I finally broke up with Mr. Burns. He was the man that I had pinned my last hopes of marriage and baby-making to, so it resulted in a very complete and final conclusion to that chapter of my life.

Shortly after that, my very best friend suffered a miscarriage, and as I sat with her in her grief - God used that time to lead me through a very dark, scary and prickly place in which I grieved the loss of my own fertility.  (Thanks to Genevra for putting the words to it.)   I can't even tell you exactly how long it took, but looking back, knowing now what was accomplished, it was a full year or more.
The extra blessing was that God put my best friend and me together to help each other through it at the same time. I couldn't have done it without her.

The bigger point is that, I HAD to go through that grief. It was such a process, that occasionally I share with others what I went through and inevitably they say one of two things.... "Oh, you shouldn't feel that way." or "You could still have babies."

Arggghh!! That is so not the point!
First of all... really? God took me through a very dark time in my life to get me here, and you're going to dismiss all that work with "Don't feel that way."???!!!

Friends. I am so much better on this side. So much easier. Sure, I'm still sad about it sometimes. But it's about finally giving up control (which I never really had anyway). And if I miraculously find love and find that I CAN have baby... that will be awesome! If not, I'm already okay with it.

Recently, I shared this with another bloggy friend as we discussed my desire for a husband. She said, "I don't think that everybody needs a partner, but I also do not think that God puts a longing for one in your heart if He doesn't intend for you find one. "

That made me realize that now I know what the journey looks like. I know that it's dark and ugly. It's scary and hard and painful. Really painful.

I'm sure it won't be exactly the same, but I know that if there is no love in my future, God will address it.  He'll address it and I'll know it. I'll know because it's a different kind of pain.  But He hasn't worked that one on me... yet. So, I'll continue to hope.

Then my friend shared this...

"Hurt is always where He starts, I find. Always. And usually a whole lot of it. This is why we must rejoice, rejoice, rejoice over and over when it hurts so that He knows that we know."

That's the thing.  My BFF and I held each other through it. (oh, and by the way, she has a beautiful baby girl now!)  Since then, she met a woman who longs for a child, and for a husband... and because my BFF thought that she was younger than us, she told her that it was still coming her way. The new friend said, no.  It's passed. She's dealt with it.  Then my BFF realized that this new friend was a woman who didn't have someone to sit with her in that grief.

I'm sharing this with you... so you might know...  you might recognize when God is working on your single friend in this way. Sit with her. Walk with her. Carry her heart when it's too heavy.
It's one thing to grieve the loss of your fertility - but having to do it alone.... without a husband to share in that grief... without a friend to just give a damn that you're hurting...  well, be a friend. Don't let that happen to someone you love.