I’ve taken birth control pills before. I can’t remember the brand I used to take, but my current doctor prescribed a different one for the first two weeks of IVF prep. I didn’t think much about it and starting taking the pills as directed.
Ugh… This brand hit me with side effects that I did not have to deal with before. For the first few days, I felt nauseous, bloated, and tired. I threw up my breakfast and lunch on the first two days, and it wasn’t until the early evenings when I felt like I could actually hold down food. After the first few days, however, my body was able to adjust, and I haven’t been hit with the nausea bug since. It still doesn’t feel like we’ve actually started the process though… It probably won’t sink in until I start the ultrasounds, injections, pills, etc.
***
There still are a million+1 questions that I put to God everyday… 99.99% of which are along the lines of “How can you be THIS unfair???”
The most difficult part of this journey, however, is watching my husband trying to engage God in a relationship for the first time in his life and through heartbreak and letdowns no less. Getting to know God is a big enough mystery when times are good… but getting to know Him when He is presenting Himself as a withholding, distant and “cruel” deity? I can see him trying to make sense of why this is happening to us and coming up empty. It’s utterly defeating to watch someone you love so much struggling to believe in a God who has proven Himself as merciful and generous to you time and time again.
Then, it hit me: this is the start of Jin’s real journey with God.
What he and I termed “doubting” is actually his spirit wrestling with God for his blessing. Just like Jacob refused to let go of God until he got His blessing, Jin, too, was wrestling with God for the blessing of our family. And while he may feel defeated that he is not where he’s “supposed” to be as the head of our household, it is actual through his wrestling, struggling and not letting go that he will get to know God in a way that is uniquely and wholly his.