Day 180 - Guarded Heart

How do you guard your heart against those things which sting you right to your core?

This isn't a rhetorical question... I'm genuinely curious.

The last few weeks have been fraught with woman after woman in my life talking about their pregnancies or their (now multiple) children.

I had gotten to a point where these things didn't seem to bother me that much. I brushed it off and was really embracing the idea that God has a plan for my life.

But just within the last week, maybe two, that reassurance has started to become a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

It's not that I don't know that God has a plan, but how do I protect my heart in the meantime?

How do I not let it bother me that the girl whose wedding dress I made last winter for her wedding this past January is now seven months pregnant?

How do I gracefully bite my tongue when a different sweet friend tells me how hard it was to try for seven whole months before they were able to conceive?

How can I rejoice with them while not letting the bitterness just well up within my soul?

I don't want to be bitter. 

I don't want to worry about the future.

I don't want to spiral into that place again... I can't.

I look at those woman who are being blessed with a new little life and I feel jealous. Really jealous.

I know too that I can only see their blessings, but I can't see the struggles that they are hiding. I don't see the things in their life that are causing them to fall on their faces before God.

So I will cling to those things which I have been given in abundance. I will pray for my sisters in Christ... that God will lighten their burdens. And I will pray that He lifts mine as well.

I am thankful that I have a God who will listen to me cry out in anguish over the same things that He has reassured me over so many times in the past.

I am thankful that I have a family who is willing to remind me that I have so many  wonderful blessings that I do get to enjoy.

I am thankful that I have a husband who truly loves me. A man who is sweet enough to let me cry as we walked to the car leaving church and not make a big deal about it, all because the baby in the row in front of us reached out his little arms for my mom (who he didn't know) and I was overcome with the idea that I haven't given her any grandchildren yet... 

I am thankful for God's word. His promises to us. To me... Thank you Lord for being a constant in this world of doubt and worry.