Confession

"These are my confessions: Just when I thought I said all I could say,

My chick on the side said she got one on the way"

I know this is what played in your head… apparently,

 Usher has forever altered the connotations of that word.

Confession time: my prayer life stinks. At one point in this journey to make a baby, I was praying like crazy. It seemed as if every waking moment was a cry to God for something to work. At previous times in my life, I feel like I literally communed with God. When the Bible says pray continuously, I can honestly say I know what that means. My days were like ongoing conversations with my Father.

However, things aren't that great now. I don't feel like I consciously decided not to pray. There wasn't a turning point in which I said "this is dumb. Why am I wasting my time?" It has sort of just evolved. 

I still fully believe in the power of prayer. But the thing is, I believe in the power of other people's prayer, not really my own. So I'm like, "you should pray about it" to others, but when it's my own thing, ehhhh. Hypocrite, I know.

The problem is that when I start to pray, a wrestling match/debate starts in my mind. I pray, "God, you know the desires of my heart…", but then thoughts like, "He knows, but does He care?" and "the scriptures say that He will give me the desires of my heart [if/when/once] I delight myself in Him." I know that God cares about me and loves me like a daughter; however, I also believe that He is God, and therefore, His ultimate plan is to bring glory to Himself. If my little (feel huge) problems don't fit in with His story, if they don't bring Him glory, then why am I praying about them?

It's a mess up in my head I tell you, a mess. Infertility has made me question my faith like nothing else ever has. And I don't mean that as if I'm suddenly wondering "is there a God?". My faith in God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit has not shifted, but I'm finding myself asking a lot more questions of who, how, and why?

The niggling doubts and questions that infertility has woven into my prayer life has then affected my prayers about everything. I should be praying for a job. Things are starting to get pretty desperate around here. It's a minimum of three months before Sam will have a job. We need money. I need to get out of the house. So again, I should be praying for a job, and trusting that God will provide, but I'm not. I try to, but then those prayers get interrupted with, "if He doesn't answer prayers for BABIES, He's not going to trouble Himself with jobs." 

I absolutely hate this about myself. I want to be someone who ardently believes in the power of prayer. Prayer is a biblical command, so I want to get it right. It seems easiest now to blame infertility. To say if I hadn't been dealt this hand of cards, I'd be better, have more faith, pray more. However, the scriptures are full of stories in which the characters were tested and yet they came out the other side with more faith, with more trust in God. 

I want to get there. To the other side, and I want to be there with my faith fully intact and prayers powerful enough to make powers and principalities tremble.