It’s been a little while since I have written anything here.  It hasn’t been intentional silence – we have been through a busy period of leaving, moving, readjusting, rediscovering, settling.  We are entering a new season and I am expectant of all it will bring.  Retreating to advance.  Watching and expecting the landscape to change.  Finding God in the every day outdoors, the quiet and the calm.

When I look back over the last few months I’m reminded again of the white-knuckle rollercoaster cliche which simply defines this journey so well.  We have received disappointing test results which have troubled us and I have had to remind myself that “no weapon (or medical word) forged against me shall prosper”.  As a barren woman I will sing and believe the promises of Isaiah 54.

I have also watched my husband finally move to a place where he feels sheltered enough to really express what he feels.  One day, unexpectedly, he dissolves into steady tears as he watches movie scenes that are just too close to the bone to hold it together anymore.  It hurts to watch his pain as he crumples beneath the weight of his grief.  The tears are closer to the surface for him more often these days.  Certain songs call out the hurt.  He is worn down by the fight to believe but he is also more willing to say it how it really feels.  I am proud of him and relieved that he can let out what has been so restrained.  I wish I had all the words to make it better.  I don’t say anymore that he would have been better with a different choice of wife who could have given him babies easily – those futile thoughts are long since forgotten between us.

And then we’ve seen thrilling victory moments; absolute highs.  Test results which have shown a positive, 180 degree turnaround for my husband which blow us away with thanks and wonder and renew our hope; words of conviction by a consultant who sees the ‘something different about us’ that we carry; breakthroughs for friends who have been through the upheaval of IVF – one who triumphantly conceives with IVF and one who conceives naturally after several rounds of failed treatment.  This is wonderful news and we absorb it all as testimonies to cling on to and share.  We have been prayed for anew and go out into a green and spacious land with fresh hope and courage, expectant spirits and a song of freedom in our hearts.

We also see that a new world of story-telling has been opened up to us and I marvel at how God uses us to build each other up.  I once heard humanity described as a hospital – we are tended to by God in our sickness and in turn taught how to treat and heal life’s familiar wounds in others as we experience our own healing.  I am grateful for fresh words of courage, of life lessons learnt and anecdotes of God’s bare-faced divine devotion shared.  I eat up the nuggets of gold that I can take away for my own journey and I am grateful for the chance to speak life into the dry bones that I sense in others.

But best of all, I breathe.  I allow this tense, tightly-wound body to unravel itself.  I make the most of the pause between hospital visits.  I rest and unwind.  I allow the breeze to tickle my face and hair and I let God whisper to me in the words on the wind. I watch the sunlight glinting gold and green on the leaves in the trees near our house.  I wander in the garden and meet Him there in the cool of the evening.  I look up at the stars and am reminded of promises to my ancestors long, long ago.  And I think that whatever comes I will not choose to let any sense of lack or waiting rob me of the fullness of life that I am living now.  I could focus on the empty cot in the garage that we were kindly given for ‘one day’ by a family member or the pregnancy books that were bought in hope now untouched and gathering dust on our bookshelf.  Or I can choose to absorb and enjoy life in this moment and be grateful for all that I have.