{Note from Amy: For reasons you will soon understand, this post has been submitted anonymously. May you be blessed in the reading.}
I have five beautiful children. I praise the Lord for each one, for the eternal gift they are, and the joy they bring me. I also praise Him for the bouts of two month long morning sickness that leave me weak, thin, and unable to really care for them. I have learned the secret of finding joy in trials. It is simple really; yet it took me 7 pregnancies to understand, and who knows how long it will take to walk perfectly in it.
The first pregnancy I endured was a lesson in how selfish and wicked I truly was; how far I would go to please myself. I was sick for only one or two weeks, unable to eat or drink, losing weight, getting weak, when I took myself to an abortion clinic and committed murder against my own flesh and blood. I knew immediately the sin I had committed, and grieved. I am thankful to my Lord and Savior, that He is able to forgive even the worst of sinners, such as myself.
Fast forward 4 years, I was saved and I was pregnant again. This time newly married. I fell ill immediately. We were barely home from the honeymoon before I was vomiting constantly, and grumpy and cranky as a wicked witch. My husband was non-plussed, young and unsure, he didn’t know how to help me and it frustrated him endlessly. There were many fights, and lots of selfishness (especially on my side). I wondered why on earth I was so sick when so many people got off “scott free” without a lick of morning sickness. My morning sickness laid me in bed from 8pm to noon the next day, and I lost something around 14 pounds. I was bitter with the Lord. I begged Him to remove the sickness from me. I didn’t ever understand His answer at the time. I could understand no other answer than to remove the cup.
With the next baby, two and a half years later, I wasn’t much better off. I was laid up sick again, this time with a toddler. This time I begged God to remove this cup from me, and I quoted scriptures at Him about health and healing. I was getting frustrated. Why would He allow me to be so sick? I was jealous of women who’s pregnancies were “easy”, and bitter again with the God who said He loved me, but wouldn’t make me well. This time the sickness lasted until 16 weeks. I thought I was going to die, I worried that I would be ill the WHOLE pregnancy.
I repeated the same scenario just 9 months later when I was blessed to carry my third living child. I begged God to help me, and this time I heard distinctly “My grace is sufficient for you”. I knew He was not going to remove this cup from me. I still begged at every wretching, and grew bitter and demanding when I faced the inevitable vomiting. I couldn’t understand. I had been so long under teaching that said God wanted everyone to be healthy all the time, and that if I was sick it was my fault for not having faith, it was hard to think any other way.
I met some godly women online who pointed out that when we are sick but still choose to have children it brings God glory. The world sees only their own discomfort, but when they watch us grow very ill, and yet choose to bring forth more life, they stand in wonder. This gave me hope. It gave me a REASON for suffering. It helped me to understand that life, and my suffering isn’t all about ME. It wasn’t a punishment that I was ill. I began to look forward to the next pregnancy. I began to know that I could surrender to God’s sovereign will for my life. I considered it a good chance to show others how much God loves children, and that I valued them so much, I was willing to endure.
When I was blessed again however, I still had a very hard time surrendering to His will. I had to fight to not ask Him to remove the cup. It wasn’t a joyful time of illness, but it wasn’t as much torture as the previous ones had been. I wasn’t bitter with God anymore, and I asked Him to help me through it. I attempted to find joy despite the suffering. I tried to practice believing that His grace was sufficient for me, and that when I was weak then I was strong in Christ. It lessened the burden of the illness on me, and around this time my husband became more helpful which also lessened the burden. My first born child was old enough to keep the kitchen cleaned, and make a couple meals like oatmeal. I was still complaining bitterly of the suffering, and I didn’t know there was something better. I thought that the martyr attitude was a godly one, and the top of the revelation of God’s teaching on suffering. That suffering was glorious because we suffer.
When I last became pregnant (this go round, live baby number 6), I learned the most wonderful thing of all. That we can find joy IN suffering, not just despite it; that we can be thankful FOR suffering. I’ve been sick. I’ve been so sick I can’t get off of the sofa. I can’t stand to smell food cooking, and even though I know I need to eat it, I throw up instead and can’t. This is God’s BEST for me. It’s His will for me. It’s the cup and the cross He wants me to bear. But He promised that I don’t have to be discouraged. Though I am pressed on every side, I can be joyful. Though I suffer, I can enjoy that He is making me into the image of His most holy Son. I am pressed down, but I can smile. He has not left me, He has not forgotten to provide His grace for me. He is not just using me to reach a lost world through my suffering. No. His BEST for ME, is that I might be conformed into the image of Christ. That I might be like unto Him, and that I might share in the fellowship of His suffering, just as Paul and all the other saints have. He is blessing me with this suffering. It’s His MERCY on me. The mercy of salvation worked out in me.
I can say with Paul “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Cor 12:10) I can say with him “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:10-12) That I might be able to apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Create in me a pure heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me. He has revealed to me what it is to “…count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;…” (James 1:2) I can take pleasure in illness, I can count it joy that I suffer, I can be thankful in all things, and when I am sick now, I make every attempt to praise the God who sought me, and bought me, and won’t let me go away unchanged. He is faithful to work in me the image of His Son, to continue pressing me when I am foolish and stubborn and want to remain a child. He is faithful to complete in me, the work which He began. I hope that I might be faithful to accept, and find joy in His workings.
