11 April 2020

Needles, Blessings, and a Resurrected Savior



            Early on in our infertility journey, I read that I needed to get over needles fast.  Whoever wrote that encouraging little memo wasn’t kidding.  My doctor recently switched me from oral progesterone to at-home intramuscular injections.  Combined with monthly blood draws and weekly acupuncture, that puts my pokiest week topping out at roughly 18-20 needles in the span of 7 days literally from the top of my head down to my ankles and everywhere in between.  My acupuncturist even started needling my belly recently, which is just a delight, let me tell you.  

            While I eagerly look forward to the day that I’m no longer a human pin cushion, this season hasn’t been without it’s blessings.  For example, I have a good nurse friend who is taking the time to come administer my progesterone injections (having my husband give them was an option, but I wasn’t too keen on that idea.  He keeps reminding me he gave them to pigs when he worked on the hog farm and that pig skin is the most similar to human skin - thank you, Mythbusters - so, he’s not entirely inexperienced.  Somehow that still just isn’t overly comforting to me).  Anyway, my friend prayed for me as she gave me my first injection while my husband stayed nearby with Nika (who is essentially my emotional support dog), and I was again reminded how very much I am not alone in this.  I know that someday my own joy will be shared (and amplified as a result) with so many who have walked alongside (and sometimes carried) us through this, regardless of how God chooses to glorify Himself through it in the end. 

            I have also been more aware than ever of how I am crossing paths with people I wouldn’t have and in ways I wouldn’t have had my story been unfolding differently.  I am familiar with all of the phlebotomists at our hospital.  I see my acupuncturist and the girl who runs her front desk every week.  In the time we have been trying to conceive, I have had the gift of being a nanny to three beautiful kids in two separate families and of getting to love them and watch them grow.  I had the time, mental clarity, and energy to give careful and thoughtful counsel to the teenage girl who reached out unexpectedly for guidance the other day.  I have more of myself to give in youth ministry (and ministry in general) during this season.  

            Pain and suffering are not the worst things.  Struggles and trials are not the worst things.  In fact, all these things teach, grow, and refine us and bond us to others in ways that nothing else can accomplish.  They help us know Jesus just a little better and become a little more like Him, for he suffered more than any of us will ever have to.  He did so on our behalf.  He provided the way to escape the most intense, thorough, and final pain that any human being will ever experience.  He took it on Himself, and all that He asks is that we trust Him.  We will still experience disappointment and deep hurts in this life, but if we trust Him, we know that the glorious end of our own story will completely overshadow the heartaches of today.  I have had hope through infertility, through marital heartaches, through job loss, through seemingly constant life upheaval, and yes, through the caronavirus because I know the One who died for me and whose love was unequivocally and incomparably demonstrated by that death.  I also know that He is alive and that anything He allows into my life can be used for good.  The grave could not hold Him; neither will it hold those who believe in Him.  And I know that ultimately I’m not the end of my own story.  He is.  

“Sing to the Lord all you godly ones!  Praise His holy name.  For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor lasts a lifetime!  Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:4-5 NLT).




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