Before getting married, as most engaged couples do, Josh and I began going to marriage counseling. We had what I believe was a normal marriage counseling session except for the part that came to having kids. You see the couple that was counseling us, challenged us to not use birth control and just trust God in His sovereignty. I think I laughed inside as I heard this and thought yeah right. I mean who wants to get pregnant on their honeymoon? Three months before getting married I decided that birth control was the route I was going to take because I was not ready to have children and wanted to enjoy being married for awhile. Not only that, but I was still in school and we were living in a small apartment off of Josh’s paycheck alone.
After just a few months of being married I began to remember the challenge that had been given to us. I began to feel convicted and felt as if God was telling me to just trust Him. I began to hate the fact that I was taking hormones and knew that long term this was not the healthiest options for me. Throughout this time of struggling with my conviction, I heard different stories from random people about not being able to have children or about how they got pregnant while on birth control. I talked with Josh about my conviction but at the time he did not feel the same. I decided that I would not stop taking it until Josh agreed. I began praying that God would change Josh’s heart if this was His will. Just a short while later, Josh told me that he was okay with me not taking birth control any more and with an anxious yet excited heart I quit taking birth control that day.
Before discontinuing to take the pill, I had talked to several people about my conviction. I realize that many people do not have the same conviction I had and in fact most people told me “well, if God wants you to get pregnant you will whether you are on the pill or not”. I also heard “I believe God gave us the knowledge and means to make and use birth control”. While all of these reasons may be true for some, to me it was just a reason to not completely trust God. He had been convicting me and I knew that I needed to be obedient. You see God is my creator. He is sovereign and He ultimately is the only one who can create or prevent life. Like I was told if He wants you to get pregnant while on birth control then you will. With that being true, I thought why would I want to be on a pill trying to prevent life and possibly causing harm to my body when God is the one who is really in control? Josh and I took a leap of faith but I rested assure that if I got pregnant or even if I didn’t, I knew that it was God’s will and His timing.
I stopped taking birth control in November of 2010 just three months after our wedding. In April of 2011, I found out that I was pregnant! We were so excited yet so scared. We had Josh and I had both started new jobs and I had only been at my job for a couple of weeks. I didn’t have insurance and we had just purchased a new home. I had no idea how we were going to make this work. With my new job I wouldn’t have insurance until after the first ninety days and by this point I would already be over three months pregnant. As always, God was in control. Around the time of me being hired, our company merged with a large local hospital and I became an employee of the hospital. Because I was now a hospital employee, I received insurance within the first 30 days as opposed to 90. But the story doesn’t end there; no, it only gets better! I was not yet 26 and because of that, I was allowed to stay on my mom’s insurance and use it as a secondary insurance. Not to brag, but my God is awesome and all we had to pay for the entire pregnancy and delivery was $300. If you know how much having a baby cost, that is an amazing deal! During my pregnancy and even a few months after Jude’s birth, Josh was helping with a kids baseball team. The team threw a diaper shower for us and we had diapers until Jude was 6 or 7 months old, which was a huge blessing.
While I was on maternity leave we discussed day care options, called around and got prices, and even looked for an in home sitter. We were blessed with a friend from church who offered to keep Jude for us. We couldn’t have asked for a better child care provider. The only concern was how we were going to afford child care. Around the time that I was getting ready to go back to work, God provided once again. Josh received a raise that would be the exact amount of what we needed to help pay for the babysitter.
Not only were we blessed financially in so many ways but we were blessed with a beautiful, healthy, I mean very healthy 10 lb 5 oz baby boy. He has been such an easy, happy, fun loving baby. If you ask anyone who knows Jude they would most likely tell you the same. I am not just being biased. I truly believe that God has blessed us in so many ways because we decided to completely trust Him!
Since we made that commitment, I have never taken birth control again. If you think trusting God completely with getting pregnant when you have no children is hard, just wait until you have a newborn and are trusting Him in is timing again hoping that it isn’t any time soon. It is obvious to me who our creator is and that He is sovereign and in control. Jude is now 13 months old and we have continued to trust God with the provision of our next child in His timing.At this point He has not seen fit to bless us with another child, but I am sure there will be a blog about it when He does. It has been an amazing journey and I have learned so much by just letting go, taking a leap of faith, and completely trusting God with a situation that seems so hard to let go of and give Him all control.
My hopes for this blog is that it may help someone who is struggling with trusting God to step off of the edge and leap. I hope that one day my children will read this and rest assured that they were completely apart of God’s plan for our lives, and I hope that we can leave an example for our children as they will be faced with the decision to trust God or trust in themselves and the things of this world.
How could anyone want to miss out on having one of these?