I didn’t dream of being a mom. I just assumed I would eventually have kids.
A people-pleasing, first-born child, I was a good student who went to college and never changed my major. I interned and worked as a news reporter – just as my print journalism degree would have me do. I married my college boyfriend and we started our life together. I went through life as I assumed lives were supposed to be lived.
Then one day in December 2004, I realized the birth control pills I was taking regularly were preventing God from having his way with my family. Like every stereotypical young, American couple, we decided we were “ready” to have a baby. My husband Greg was already ready and was just waiting – quite patiently, I might add – for me to want a family.
My time table was a good one. I had the sequence of events figured out and inked on the calendar. But nothing was going according to plan.
But, really, all that control I was scared to death to give up is like a big pile of lemons. Sometimes it looks pretty, but it’s often sour. Life was giving me lemons, and I struggled to make lemonade.
Nearly two years went by and for various reasons we were still childless. Yes, I cried out to God when friends announced pregnancies: “I told you I was ready!” There they were, sipping on their lemonade while I stared at the pile of lemons I was just making bigger.
The waiting made me weary. The medicine that helped me ovulate made me cranky. The whole season put a strain on my marriage.
I just wanted to have a baby.
That was the next step in life, in my plan.
But it wasn’t the next step in my life as God saw it. It’s a long story, one I tell in my new ebook, “Peace in the Process: How Adoption Built My Faith & My Family.” But I did eventually become a mom, never expecting adoption to be our story.
But it’s a story I tell over and over again because it’s the one that changed me. It’s the journey on which I learned to do something with those lemons. It’s when I learned how to make lemonade.
Adoption built my faith and gave me a family. And surrendering to God was refreshing, like drinking that lemonade made directly from that large, intrusive pile of lemons.
On my journey to motherhood, I learned what the peace that passes all understanding really means and how God really does work together all things for his good. I have a testimony of God’s faithfulness – something I wouldn’t trade for getting my own way when I thought I knew what was best.
Kristin Hill Taylor tells about becoming and being a mom after the hard season of infertility in “Peace in the Process: How Adoption Built My Faith & My Family,” which is available at Amazon. She believes in taking road trips, living in community, and seeking God as the author of every story – many of which she shares at www.kristinhilltaylor.com. She lives in Murray, Kentucky, with her college sweetheart husband and their two kids.
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Thanks for letting me share here today! I’m loving your lemonade series.