Chapter Three

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage."

Somehow, a juvenile child's rhyme has managed to encapsulate a lifetime of hopes, dreams, and perhaps tears for every generation. It sounds so easy - step one, step two, and step three. Voila! You got yourself a perfect life!

But God doesn't always let things happen that way. Sometimes, He stops us before a certain step, teaching us to reconcile our own visions with what He actually has in store. Sometimes, He lets a season of life linger far longer than we ever expected it to, and we are challenged again and again to thrive where He's placed us, to grow as He wants us to in that particular chapter of life.

After seven years of love and marriage, Tim and I stand at the threshold of a new possibility. Lord willing, we would love to meet the the little ones in my womb, to be given the opportunity to love them and raise them for the Lord.

At the same time, I know this isn't a finish line.

This isn't a man-made "success story" to celebrate or brag about. This isn't "proof" that if you just wait long enough, or want it desperately enough, the Lord will give you what you want.

It's not that. It's not that at all.

Because if the past decade of my life has taught me anything - it's that everything, truly everything, is by His grace alone. And it is entirely up to Him how He wants to write the story He wants us to live out.

It's by His grace that I have a loving husband who seeks to lead our marriage in the way of the Lord. It's by His grace that I have a marriage where we can share our deepest thoughts, hopes, and dreams with each other as we wait for the Lord's will. It's by His grace that we have a church family where we can grow and love and thrive. And it is by His grace alone that we are where we are, waiting to see if He will let us have the chance to raise these miracle babies.

And I know that there is still so, so much more to this story.

I've seen friends who change once they get to complete their nursery rhyme. Suddenly, once love, marriage, and baby carriage fall in line, it just doesn't seem as important to trust or to pray or to keep growing in the Lord anymore. All those things that were blessings in the first place seem to replace the need to seek after the Giver of all things.

I pray, so hard, that we won't be like that.

Because this isn't a finish line.

And, Lord willing, if He allows us to move on to the wonderful world of parenthood, I hope that we will pursue our relationship with Him all the more because of it. May we learn to serve Him, to love Him, and to adapt to everything He gives in Chapter Three, as much as we had to in the ones that came before.