Overwhelming Desire

I have this immense desire. For children.
It is overwhelming.
God gave it to me.
And He isn’t taking it away.

Oh, how I am praying for Him to fulfill it. To bring it to fruition.
My body aches and my heart throbs with the immensity of this desire.

Psalm 20:4-5

May He give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.
May we shout for joy over your victory
and lift up our banners in the name of our God.

May the LORD grant all your requests.

Put my tears in Thy bottle, O Lord. Hear Thou my request. Bend low Thine ears, send Thy Spirit, provide by Thy spoken Word.
Do not disdain the godly desires of Thy handmaiden.
Be Thou near to me.

Oh, that I had the endurance of Job.

Job 6:8-13

Oh, that I might have my request,
that God would grant what I hope for,
that God would be willing to crush me,
to let loose His hand and cut off my life!
Then I would still have this consolation—
my joy in unrelenting pain—
that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.

What strength do I have, that I should still hope?
What prospects, that I should be patient?
Do I have the strength of stone?
Is my flesh bronze?
Do I have any power to help myself,
now that success has been driven from me?

And, oh, how I resonated with the words of David, as we sang this psalm yesterday in church – with a black veil covering my head and tears making tiny streams that flowed from eye to cheek to lip to chin to chest.

Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but You do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.

That is how I feel. It feels as though our God has forsaken us. It feels as though He does not hear our cries of deep & utter anguish. For two years now, day and night, we have beseeched His grace to provide us with a baby in our home. It seems He does not answer. He does not give us rest from our grief, our pain, the shadow of death is not lifted from our midst.

Yet You are enthroned as the Holy One;
You are the one Israel praises.
In You our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and You delivered them.
To You they cried out and were saved;
in You they trusted and were not put to shame.

That little word, yet, is so powerful. Yet!! Looking to the past and to our covenantal ancestors, we see God’s faithfulness. We see His goodness. We see His saving graces. We see His provision. He heard them! He did not leave them! He rescued them!

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the LORD,” they say,
“let the LORD rescue him.
Let Him deliver him,
since he delights in Him.”

Although a large number of people throughout the world uphold us, sympathize with us, pray for us, grieve alongside us… there are still those who mock our faith, call us suckers, and ask me why we continue to trust the Lord when He calls us to walk this dark & dreary, soul-anguishing, hope-extinguishing path. While my flesh threatens to ask the same thing, yet (there’s that word again!) my heart is steadfast. By God’s grace, somehow, we are steadfast.

Yet You brought me out of the womb;
You made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
From birth I was cast on You;
from my mother’s womb You have been my God.

Yet. Again yet. We are covenant children. God has been our God since before we were even created. We belonged to God from the beginning. We have always been His. He has always been ours. We will always belong to one another. We have no choice – hallelujah!

Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

Trouble encases us. We look for help. Support. Encouragement. Answers. Treatments. And while our brothers & sisters do their absolute utmost to help us in those ways (praise the Lord! we are so thankful!), only our Heavenly Father can be the true trouble-solver and helper in all of this. We need Him near. Oh, how we need Him!

Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
Roaring lions that tear their prey
open their mouths wide against me.
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
You lay me in the dust of death.Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.

Doctors, acquaintances, people online, even some people in closer circles to us than you might imagine… they scorn us and our situation. “Just adopt!” they say. “Get a surrogate and be done with this,” I have been told. “Stop grasping at straws and learn to accept your lot,” someone once said. I am stared at and gloated over. It adds to my grief and enhances my pain. The bulls and the dogs are Satan’s cohorts. They are sometimes people who spit at me with empty, thoughtless, even hurtful words. They are more often principalities that I can not see or touch, but who are mighty at work against the Gospel of Light in the world. These powers of darkness attack us every day, on every side. They seek our destruction.

But You, LORD, do not be far from me.
You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
Deliver me from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dogs.
Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

We beg our Father to be near to us. We ask Him to be our strength! We seek His help and deliverance! We are so bold as to tell Him to deliver us from the demons and evil powers that threaten to eat us alive.

I will declare Your name to my people;
in the assembly I will praise You.
You who fear the LORD, praise Him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor Him!
Revere Him, all you descendants of Israel!
For He has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
He has not hidden His face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

We seek to praise the Lord even through the anguish we experience. We desire to proclaim His grace and mercy, even when it is hard to feel it. We honor Him and revere Him, and pray for our example to show forth the majesty of the Lord to His people & the watching nations so that they too will call upon His name. We trust that He has not ignored us or left us, in our suffering and affliction. We trust that He does not hide His face, but is listening. It is hard to believe right now… but we trust Him for it.

From You comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear You I will fulfill my vows.
The poor will eat and be satisfied;
those who seek the LORD will praise Him—
may your hearts live forever!

The Lord gives words to our empty lips. He gives us the strength to continue our fellowship with Him, when we feel too weakened to praise Him on our own. We ask Him to provide for our needs, and satisfy our broken souls.

All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before Him,
for dominion belongs to the LORD
and He rules over the nations.
All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.
Posterity will serve Him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim His righteousness,
declaring to a people yet unborn:
He has done it!

The Lord will accomplish great things. His name will be exalted. He will be victorious. Over brokenness; over sin; over doubt; over pain; over grief; over mockery; over abandonment; over DEATH!! Amen! He will be praised, and our life of affliction will not be for naught! There will be a purpose proven over time. We will not have wasted our life in vain! If His righteousness is our aim, we will be successful!

But oh… how hard to feel that when our souls are in the midst of such indescribable anguish…