When you’re trying to conceive a baby, it can be so hard to wait.
Sometimes, Psalm 13 never seemed more true: How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?
In the waiting, it can be tempting to put things on hold – whether intentionally or unintentionally. Fun date night outs, enjoyable movie nights in, double dates, travel, weekly Adoration together, daily Mass before work, donuts & coffee at a favorite spot every Saturday, reading aloud together…
Somehow it may seem doing these activities and enjoying time together is wrong or misplaced or even unimportant.
You may find yourselves wondering, “When will this new chapter start? When will we finally be a family?”
As a married couple, you already are a family. That’s right! You can slap “Smith Family” onto your return addresses for your Christmas cards and your great Aunt Shirley can have a cow if she wants or call half your family to figure out if you’re pregnant, but it doesn’t change the simple fact that you are, in fact, a family. When you say your wedding vows, you engage in a covenantal reality that binds you two together as one – as a brand new family never to have existed before and never to exist again. Your family is unique, unrepeatable and totally & completely your own story to live out and share with the world.
Your marriage is a witness to God the Father’s love and the mystery of the Trinity. And, that power to be a witness to each other and to others doesn’t start when you have children. It starts at the moment you exchange your vows.
Don’t let a season – no matter how long – go to waste. This is a time that God is allowing you both to grow and to be fruitful and multiply your love in ways that are perfectly tailored to your marriage. God is GOD and He is allowing this season of waiting for reasons the two of you get to discover together.
Maybe…
- You’ll start going to daily Mass together and deepen your spiritual life together as a couple.
- You’ll travel together to places that you’ve wanted to go and learn new things about each other.
- You’ll start a marriage group and build bonds with other couples that will last a lifetime.
- You’ll find out you have a favorite movie genre that makes movie nights extra special.
- You’ll start couples’ therapy and work on wounds or trauma that are causing rifts in your relationship.
- You’ll join a softball team together and have a blast.
- You’ll become escape room aficionados and start your own business.
- You’ll go on pilgrimages that transform you both and your marriage.
- You’ll volunteer at a shelter and it will become a staple part of your marriage living out the corporal works of mercy.
- You’ll serve in various roles during the Mass and become engaged in your parish life & community.
- You’ll dream big, scary dreams and start a business together that you’ve wanted to do “someday”.
- You’ll decide minimalism is right for you and move to a different state.
- You’ll engage in your own adventure because God has something specific in store for you & your marriage.
The point is this: Don’t stand still. Don’t stay stagnant. Don’t waste time worrying about tomorrow when what you have is the present and the grace available to you through Jesus Christ. When future anxieties or worries seem unimaginable, part of the reason for this is because you don’t have the grace to help you through whatever you’re imagining. It’s not your current reality. You have grace for the present moment, if you only ask God for it.
Whenever we see someone who has gone through such hard things and wonder how on earth they managed it, we must remember God’s grace sees us through. His mercies are enough – He is enough – to help us walk the hardest parts of our stories if we open our hearts to the graces He provides. And, to be open to the people He places in our lives to walk with us on the journey, too. We are not meant to navigate any season of life alone.
I also want to be clear: I am not saying ignore your feelings, never talk about the hardships, and don’t share the tender parts of your heart with your spouse. This is a necessary part of marriage! Marriage is the good, bad, hard, painful, beautiful. It encompasses the both/and – joy and suffering. The waiting is oh so tender, painful, and hard. Somedays, it can feel so overwhelming and I don’t want to seem like I’m ignoring the painful parts. I see YOU. I really do.
Today, in this post, I’m focusing on the movement in a season of waiting.
Lean into your marriage. Lean into the good parts of your marriage. Lean into the hard parts and let Jesus heal you. Although the waiting can be hard, God is moving. He is still good and He may be asking something radical of you. Let God transform you and your marriage and let Him into your family right now to breathe life; whatever that life might look like because He knows what He’s about and He will not forsake you in this season.
God bless you, friend. I’m praying for you in the waiting.
