A normal question, yes, but a necessary one?

An insert from my journal entry last night:

I guess it’s technically December 7^th. It is currently 3:15 in the morning and I am unable to sleep. Using the lights strung on the Christmas tree as my way of seeing, I sit here hoping to get my thoughts out of my mind and onto paper so I can hopefully get to bed soon. When I lay down earlier my eyes were wide open and my mind racing. My mind was on its usual thought, the thought of a child, but this time it seemed to be stuck like a song glued to your brain. 

I started thinking about the question Joel and I get so many times, “So when are we going to have some other little ones running around here?” Some people say this is a normal question to ask newlyweds and that there is nothing wrong with the question. What those people don’t understand is how hard it is to answer that question when we would love to announce, at any moment, that we were expecting. That we want so much to have a child and to hear coos and pitter-patter feet in our home. Tat I pray almost daily for a child, God willing. That I wait each month anxiously each month if there will be signs of a pregnancy or not, when there are not those signs, the disappointment that hits instantly; and how in the midst of it, I somehow find a way to still praise God and trust his will. That I feel like I am not able to provide my parents with a grandchild they want so badly but try so hard to not show it each time the thought comes to their mind. That I regret so badly taking a pill each day for six months. I don’t even know why I started. I thought I was supposed to – everyone else I knew started it when they got married. It was part of the “getting ready for the wedding” process. That I wonder myself when there will be “some other little ones running around here,” day after week after month Joel and I wonder if it is possible for us to have a child.  

All I’m asking is if that question comes to mind around a couple who hasn’t yet had a child, think about it a little longer. There may be nothing wrong with the question, and it may be a normal one, but that doesn’t make it a necessary one.

Before I started writing in this journal tonight, I found a piece of paper with this passage as part of some Bible study notes.

James 1:2-4

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Romans 5:1-5

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

I’m not saying that it is impossible for us to have children, I know that it is and I have seen numerous people who thought they couldn’t get pregnant to be expecting. We are learning to solely trust in God that he will provide when he is ready and how he wants to provide.