You're not alone.

This month marks 2 1/2 years since we first started trying for a baby. I really have no words to describe all the feelings I feel about it. It has been a complete roller coaster and my faith has been shaken unlike I ever thought it could be. If I'm being really honest, it has been a struggle lately to even believe He's really there. I have told a few people this, but really, it's easier for me to believe He's not there than to believe *this* is what He's dictating for my life.

And then I read about a little girl whose caringbridge site I've been following for about a year (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mcraekate) and find out that her brain cancer is back and the odds of her living through this second bout of cancer is extremely slim. And my first reaction is, "what in the world are you crying about...at least THIS isn't your life", but then I look at Chloe and think about if this was my life and I about die right in that moment. How do you live through that? Why does God allow this? I just don't get it.

I know I'm not praying enough for what I want. I know the bible says to ask. But again, why would I ask God for something He's not going to give me anyway?

It's hard to put into words EXACTLY what it is I'm feeling about God and my relationship with Him these days but by no coincidence I'm sure, I have started reading 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp (she has an amazing blog here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/). This is a book study that Angie Smith (my hero/favorite blogger) is doing right now online. You can find the study here: http://www.incourage.me/category/bloom.

Anyway...as I was reading the first chapter last night I just started bawling. It spoke to the exact feelings I'm having and put into words what I'm having a hard time saying.

Here's what it said:

Is this toxic air of the world, this atmosphere we inhale, burning into our lungs, this No, God? No, God, we won't take what You give. No, God, Your plans are a gutted, bleeding mess and I didn't sign up for this and You really thought I'd go for this? No, God, this is ugly and this is a mess and can't You get anything right and just haul all this pain out of here and I'll take it from here, thanks. And God? Thanks for nothing.

I wake and put my feet to the plank floors, and I believe the Serpent's hissing lie, the repeating refrain of his campaign movement. That God withholds good from His children, that God does not genuinely, fully, love us.

I look across farm fields. The rest of the garden simply isn't enough. It will never be enough. God said humanity was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And I moan that God has ripped away what I wanted. No, what I needed. Though I can hardly whisper it, I live as though He stole what I considered rightly mine: happiest children, [children at all], marriage of unending bliss, long, content, death-defying days. I look in the mirror, and if I'm fearlessly blunt -- what I have, who I am, where I am, how I am, what I've got -- this simply isn't enough.

That forked tongue darts and daily I live the doubt, look at my reflection, and ask: Does God really love me? If He truly deeply loves me, why does He withhold that which I believe will fully nourish me? Why do I live in this sense of rejection, of less than, of pain? Does He not want me to be happy??

I know this has gotten long (sorry!), but as I read those words I just lost it. They are precisely what I have been struggling with....with my own infertility, but also the rest of the pain and suffering in this world. I just don't understand. I think this book study is going to be really good for me.

I don't really know how to end this. I really just wanted to share my heart. Hopefully I have accurately done that.

If you're struggling with something or just unbelief in general....you're not alone.