Pain

I don't like pain.  I'm not sure anyone does.  I especially despise the pain that comes from heartbreak.  The all consuming, overwhelming, blindsiding pain that happens when your heart is just plain broken.

On March 19 I did something I prayed I'd never have to do.  I had a hysterectomy.  Though several doctors over the years had encouraged me to do it, I put it off.  I begged and pleaded with them to find another solution.  I prayed to my Father in Heaven to make my body work properly.  I endured and suffered through month after month and year after year of physical pain.  And finally my body was done and I was left with no other options. No more putting it off.  It was time.  And my heart was broken.

I have three incredible, beautiful, gifts from God.  My children are amazing.  And they are mine.  In every sense of the word.  No, I did not give birth to them.  But they were meant to be my children.  Of that, I have no doubt.

And yet....there was always this nagging voice in my mind.  This little thought that someday, somehow, sometime we would try again.  We would hope and pray and try.  I always felt that there was this little person that we were meant to create, who was meant to come through me.

Once again I begged the doctor.  I pleaded with him to find another way.  Another solution.  I begged him not to say those horrible words.  I so desperately wanted more time.  He was blunt and to the point.  Not only would it be next to impossible to get pregnant, even with medical help, my body would never carry a baby to full term.  My options were gone.  My body had failed.  

And now, though the pain has ebbed, there are times like tonight when it hits, without warning, and it is so overwhelming and gut-wrenching that I feel paralyzed.  And all I can do is sob.  

It is times like these that I am so thankful for the knowledge that I have a loving Father in Heaven.  I can't imagine not being able to turn to Him and pour out my heart, my sorrows, my pain.  

I don't have all the answers.  And I may never fully understand why.  But I will do my best to trust in Him, to rely on Him and to believe that His plan is greater than my own.  Sometimes that's all any of us can do.