{advent - week one} - Enough

One of the most unexpected blessings from my infertility journey is my friend Dawn. When you travel a lonely road like infertility, you hardly expect to meet some of your dearest friends. Since we met at an infertility retreat in 2006, Dawn has been a dear and precious friend to me. Our friendship is characterized by laughter, a shared, ironic humour, and deep conversations about God and faith. I'm thrilled that she has agreed to share with us this week. Read on...

A baby won't be enough.

It was nearly ten years ago that I heard those words, almost audibly, from God.

I heard them at a Christian women's retreat. Women's retreats tend to be a series of winces and inner groans for childless women. Not always, of course, but well-meaning and needed talks about godly parenting can be like a knife in the heart of someone who doesn't have a child at home calling them mommy.

I attended with hopes that the Lord would speak to me about my childlessness. Hoping I'd receive some promise that, if I just continued, He would bless me in the way I wanted, and then I'd feel fulfilled. Then I would have purpose. That, with a child, I would have enough. What's funny is that I always expected to hear about that: when (or if) I'd become a mother. I expected to hear the path I needed to take to arrive there. The assurance that I would arrive. Never mind that He always spoke to me. It was the only subject that I was interested in hearing about.

I did hear from Him about motherhood that weekend. But not the way I'd expected.

Walking through the campground late at night, I heard Him say, "If you become a mother, you will need Me then just as you need Me now." He told me that if I became a mother, that would not be the thing that perfects me. I'd be in as much need for a Savior as I was at that moment. Having a baby wouldn't give me validity in His eyes. He loved me as I was. And thinking that being a mother would fulfill me, give me purpose and be enough? That if I just attained motherhood, all would be right in my world? Well, apparently that was hogwash. Though my head knew this, He spoke into my heart that He was what I really needed, what my soul was really searching for. He would be enough for me. Only Him. No matter my circumstances. Always only Him.

This Advent, if you're thinking that if only... if only you had a spouse, or a child, or your dream job, dream house, parents who understood you, closer friends, etc... know that there is One who sticks closer than a brother; One who placed the Hope of Mankind in the womb of an unwed teenager. He cares for you. In your brokenness and in your triumphs. He is more than both of those. He is more than your unfulfilled dreams and greatest successes.

He loves you. And He is enough.

Dawn is an amateur photographer and a slow runner. She loves German Shepherds and making her friends laugh. She is the wife of a youth pastor and, after waiting for 16 years, adoptive mom to a miracle boy through the beauty of adoption.

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Thank you so much for joining us in this Advent series.
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