I held the phone in my hands, not believing what I was hearing on the other end of the line. My surgeon was asking me to let him just go ahead and give me a hysterectomy. He didn't think I would be able to carry children anyway. I had had 5 major surgeries in a year and a half. It was just inevitable, to him.
"No way!" I exclaimed! "I want children, someday!" At 25 years old, I wasn't dating anyone, but knew that when God put someone in my life, I wanted to have the option of having a baby.
The next year I met Steve. He had two girls, Mandy and Valerie, from a previous marriage. When we decided to get married, I assumed that this was how God intended for me to have children. Steve and I really didn't plan on adding to the family. God had other plans.
When we had been married only about a month and a half...I woke up really sick. It wasn't the flu...!
With no problems at all, I carried our baby to term. Stephen Gabriel was born a month before our first anniversary.
When Gabe was about six months old, that same nauseous feeling woke me up. Nine months later, along came Timothy James. Did I send my old surgeon birth announcements? No...I behaved myself! :)
When human thinking looks at logic and makes plans, I've heard it said that God laughs. I'm sure He was having a good chuckle when I was on the phone to the doctor that day! He knew the plans He had for me. He had the same plans for my mother.
My mother, Nora was born in 1938. When she was 9 she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. At that time they treated new cases very differently than they do today. She was in the hospital for about a year. They taught her how to give herself shots of insulin. They advised her family that she should not carry babies. My mother knew in her heart she wanted two children, a boy and a girl. She met my father, and despite all of the cautions, she had two children....a girl and a boy. After each birth she went into a coma for a short time. Yet she had what she wanted....a family. She was a mother. God knew the plans He had for her.
God knows the plans He has for you. Perhaps it is through parenthood...perhaps not. Either way, we have influence on others by how we live our life and the choices we make. Some of those we influence are children...and some are adults.
Jeremiah 29:11 states "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". The plans that God has for us are good. We are the ones who mess those plans up, at times by not listening to His voice and going our own way. Some of those plans include pain. That is inevitable in life. Because sin is in the world...we can't avoid it. But God's ultimate plans are to enrich and benefit our lives...for us to have life to the fullest.
As my mother and I could attest to, life isn't easy. The fulfilling of our dreams involved difficult times and unclear paths, but God gives hope. He has plans to give us a HOPE and a FUTURE. He gives us hope when the road ahead is dark...He has plans for a better future that we could never imagine.
My mother passed away at the age of 52. She was given the grace to not only have two children, but she was able to see four grandchildren. Although my mother has been gone for 20 years, she has left me a legacy of love that I have passed onto my children...and now my grandchildren. We have been blessed with three beautiful granddaughters.
Does God have a plan for me? Yes. He has one for you, too.
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