Double Blessing

I don’t like an empty nest.

Fortunately, it won’t be empty long!

For three years, my younger brother lived with us. When we moved him out so he could start his young adult life, a tragic hour and a half drive from home, it simultaneously broke my heart and made me glow with pride. Before he moved in, our lives had gotten painfully difficult. Mom was diagnosed with cancer, and within a year my father had a debilitating stroke. The family was struggling to get along and it felt like all joy had abandoned us. Despair was all I knew.

When my brother packed his bags and moved to Wilson, it was like the final page of a chapter had turned. I had watched a boy grow into a young man and he had outgrown even us. It was time, but how to let him go?

True, I sound like an empty nester at only 27 years old. In fact, that is exactly what it felt like. I knew navigating our new family dynamic would be difficult, what I did not know was just how soon God planned to fill up my empty nest! The day we dropped my brother off and said goodbye, I felt as though the Lord was asking me a very simple question.

“Abby, are you ready for the next step?”

In my mind, the next step could have been just about anything. My full time job is as an event coordinator for a local youth ministry, if I could describe it so succinctly. Maybe what God meant was that He would send me to Nicaragua as a missionary, or to Spain. Both places I had considered doing missions before. Maybe the next step had to do with my parents who, while doing well at the moment still may need my help once again in the coming years. I told God yes, excited but unsure about what the next step could be- after all, I have always dreamed of publishing a novel, perhaps that is what He meant?

I will admit, the thought of children briefly crossed my mind, but after 8 years of marriage with no real plan for having kids in the near future, I often wondered if having my own children was simply not in the cards for my life. My husband and I went back and forth on whether we would or whether we wouldn’t and it never felt like the right time. That day, however, that we dropped my brother off, was different. My husband came home and said He had been talking to God. Or rather, God had been talking to him. It had become apparent that he had been making excuses as to why it was not a good time to have kids. He realized he was out of excuses. Then I told him what I had experienced just a few hours earlier, and we were agreed. We were sure this was God telling us it was time to start a family.

It was that same day we conceived and I had my heart set on twins. I prayed for twins, I asked our neighbors to pray for twins. When we went to my first ultrasound appointment, I told the nurse to look for two babies. I had prayed so hard for twins, I wanted to know if God had said yes or no, and I did not want that second baby to hide from the sonographer!

As soon as we could see the babies, the sonographer saw both of them sitting there just as perfectly as could be and she just shook her head. “I can’t believe it!” She said.

I could.

God deserves our immediate obedience in situations where He is so clearly instructing us in our lives. He also deserves our patience. I was fully aware and accepting of the fact that He may not have granted me twins and that was okay. Even now, as I wait for the birth of our children, I wait in a tension of truth and trust. These babies belong to the Lord first. He created their lives and if, for some reason, He sees fit to call them home before I ever get to hold them in my arms, I must embrace His decisions for our lives. Even my own life, while always in His hands, hangs in the balance. With something as risky as child-birth I have a will to fill out, and advanced directives to write for the doctors who will care for us. There is much joy in my heart combined with certain uncomfortable realities that are only bearable because I know my Savior Jesus lives, and his promise is true. When God calls me home I will be restored to Him because I know His only Son personally. The one who died and endured wrath, the one who was resurrected, the one who will return for His church.

Life is scary. Life is exciting. Thank God I can lean on the Creator of the Universe as I face the unknowns, the eventualities, the terrors, and as I experience the joys, the thrills, the blessings.

© 2020 A.K