Today’s guest blogger is Marilyn Moon Mansfield, Communications Specialist and person extraordinaire! Marilyn speaks from the heart as she dedicates this message to her daughter on her 28th birthday. Let Marilyn hear from you at marilyn@marilynmoonmansfield.com
Every y
ear on this day my emotions get the best of me and I am speechless. To those who know me well, that’s hard to imagine as I’m rarely at a loss for words. You see, 28 years ago exactly on this day, January 12, 1989, I had the most amazing experience. At approximately 7:30 p.m. on that day you would have witnessed a 32-year-old woman jumping up and down, clapping, squealing, and crying for hours. It wasn’t because my favorite team won the national championships … this evening of celebration goes far beyond what the human mind can conceive! January 12, 1989 was the night of my daughter’s birth. Remembering that day, replaying all the details, still sends chills down my spine! But that wasn’t the case just two years prior
I’ve always been an open book. Some would say I offer too much information, so I want to be completely transparent here. During the weeks, months and years leading up to my daughter’s birth, I was broken, depressed, lonely, disappointed, and YES, angry! I had been battling an emotional, mental and physical health condition — INFERTILITY! Just writing that word strikes a raw nerve in me. To be totally honest, I was so mad I DID scream, and often, at God! To pour further salt on my wound, I knew people who were having their third and fourth babies and they were DISAPPOINTED because they had not “planned” another child! I wanted to hurt someone … it wasn’t fair!
Infertility is defined as “the inability to conceive or carry a pregnancy to term after 12 months of trying to conceive.” I had been dealing with this “disease” for over 24 months! There are drugs, tests, protocols in place to increase the likelihood of conception but no guarantees! For me, nothing worked! Dealing with infertility was so hard and heart-wrenching. I had zero control and I didn’t like that! I never hid my infertility from others because I figured the more who knew, the more prayers would go up, and maybe even God would listen to someone, anyone, even if it wasn’t me. What had I done, Lord, to deserve this?
God does answer prayers and my answer was “No”! I never got pregnant! Well-intentioned people would share their spiritual wisdom with me by telling me things I already knew, but didn’t want to hear, that “it wasn’t God’s will,” or, the best one, “quit trying and it will happen.” I secretly wanted to say, “have you ever dealt with infertility?” Don’t tell me what you don’t know!
As time went on, the anger, disappointment and shame began to bury itself deep inside me. The pain numbed me to the point of not feeling at all. I was neither happy nor sad. Two years passed and then my answer came. God’s plan, unbeknownst to us was revealed. A precious baby girl was born in another town. The circumstances leading up to her birth are nothing less than God-scripted, because all along, while I was sitting underneath my “broom tree” feeling as if I wanted to die, because I thought I had had enough, God sent a most amazing gift in the form of a little baby girl into this world to be fearfully and wonderfully made inside the womb of another woman, yet created specifically for my husband and me. She was a miracle and it was all because of God’s divine plan.
Since 1989 I have never once doubted His provision, though I have wondered, “Why, Lord, of all the women whose arms ached for a child in January of 1989, why was I chosen?” I know the answer … because God said it would be so! I am eternally grateful to God for His Most Amazing Gift of my daughter.
Hallelujah and Amen!
Psalms 139:14-17 “I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious are your thoughts to me oh God. How vast is the sum of them.”
