My whole life all I’ve ever wanted to be was a wife and a mother. In my mind, I’d meet some great guy in college, get engaged and get married the summer after graduation. Then a couple years later we would start our family and live happily ever after. That’s not how it played out at all for me. I didn’t meet my husband until I was 25 and we didn’t get married until I was 28. A year into marriage we decided to start our family. A year later we still were not pregnant. That year was filled with what I call the hope and disappointment roller coaster. Every month there was this hope that this would be the month we’d get pregnant, and every month we were disappointed that we were still not pregnant. After much testing and many meetings with a fertility specialist, we heard the words, “It’s unreasonable for you to think you will ever have biological children.” We sat in our car in the parking lot and wept.
We had some decisions to make and we decided to pursue domestic adoption. We would spend the next six years in and out of the adoption process. I always tell people adoption is not for the faint of heart. It’s an emotional, financial, mental, and spiritual battle. It, like trying to get pregnant, was a roller coaster of hope and disappointment. We are now out of that process and have three beautiful children, but the road to get there was not easy.
When I think of this verse in light of those things, I ask myself, did I count it all joy as I faced those trials? I would love to answer with a resounding yes, but it’s more accurate to say that it depended on the day. But I also look back on that time and ask, did it produce steadfastness in me? The answer to that is a resounding yes. And there’s joy in that.
The word steadfastness here means the characteristic of a person who is unwavering in their deliberate purpose and loyalty to faith and piety, even the greatest trials and sufferings. I was unwavering (by the grace of God) in my relationship with the Lord. Does that mean it wasn’t hard, or that I didn’t ever have any doubt? No.
There were many days where I felt forsaken by Him or was angry at the way my life was playing out. What it does mean though was that, even in those times, I went to the Lord. I asked Him my hard questions, I told him exactly how I felt, I told him about my doubts. I continued to seek Him even in my trials. And the continually seeking of Him in that time has led to a steadfastness that I don’t think would have been produced any other way. I know the Lord in a different and deeper way than I did before going through these things. So now, when I face a trial, I am able to face it with a little more joy, knowing that in the end it will produce in me a greater steadfastness.
