Guest Post: Waiting for Baby Bird – Rest

I am excited to have Elisha from Waiting for Baby Bird sharing on the blog today. Her and I ‘met’ last year and hit it off instantly. We both have very similar journeys and have felt called by the Lord to wait on Him for natural pregnancies. We also both have a passion to encourage women with truth who are also going through infertility. I have learned so much from her faithfulness to the Lord and she has been a consistent friend to me while on this journey. Thanks Elisha for encouraging and reminding us to rest in the Lord today.

Happy Hump Day! Hey everyone! I’m Elisha and I blog over at waiting for baby bird. I love Jesus, organizing (I would probably label my label maker if no one would laugh), random topics of conversation, eating bologna sandwiches with extra, extra mayonnaise and BBQ chips smashed in the middle, and listening to my husband talk about engineering for hours upon hours (oh wait, there is a bit of sarcasm on that last one). I am also a foster parent to a four-year old cutie patootie who I have nicknamed Goldilocks due to her beautiful blonde curls.

My husband and I have been married for 8 amazing years and we yearn for our own children; however due to PCOS, we are “challenged” in the fertility department. The doctors have given me a 3% chance of conceiving on my own but I know that God is bigger than PCOS or any doctor’s report, and through Jesus, I have a 100% chance of having my own biological children.

As a way to keep myself from going crazy as I wait, as well as to share the faithfulness and love of God as we navigate on this bumpy path of twists, turns and surprises of infertility, I have started a blog called “waiting for baby bird”. I chose the name “waiting for baby bird” because that’s exactly what I am doing…I am waiting for our baby bird to fill our empty nest. (Not to mention the fact that I love birds and all things related to birds.)

If you would like to join me as I travel from expectation to manifestation, then please check out my blog or Facebook page and if you would like encouragement/prayer as you travel on your own journey, please don’t hesitate to send me at email at 10hopeingod@gmail.com. I love connecting with new people.

Now that the intro is out-of-the-way, let’s move on to a little “Soul Food” shall we! Drum roll please…da da da da (or however you would spell it)

Rest. It’s a word I don’t like. I am the type of person that can’t sit still for long. I don’t go to movie theaters and I can’t even watch a 30 minute sitcom before I’m up folding laundry, checking Facebook, or organizing a dresser drawer. Resting is just not in my nature; so imagine my thoughts when on May 20th, 2012, after my third failed treatment cycle and recent news that I was miscarried after IVF, God asked me to rest in His healing and cease all further fertility treatments (you can read the full story here).

It’s been two years since that conversation with God in which I agreed to “rest” and every time I start to get anxious and think nothing will ever change unless I labor or strive, I begin to remember the healing of the paralyzed man at the pool of Bathesda. For 38 years, the man had been flat on his back, unable to do anything for himself or others, no matter how hard he struggled. I also think about the miraculous restoration of the woman oppressed with the spirit of infirmity. She had been bowed over for 18 years and saw very little that was beautiful in life–only the dusty ground, dirty sandals and bruised feet day in and day out. I even think about the man with the withered hand who must have felt useless with a very poor sense of self-worth.

I think about these stories often because I can related to each of them as I sometimes feel powerless to change my situation, or as though without children in my life I am missing out on the beauty of being a mother, and I too have moments where I have a poor sense of self-worth due to the health conditions I have been diagnosed with. I can also relate because I believe all three of them, much like myself, struggled for so long to get back on their feet, to try to lift themselves up, to attempt to do something about their situations, only to be disappointed each time they failed.

Yet I mostly think about these three specific stories because they offer me hope. Each one of them received the miracle they so desperately had been striving to receive on their own when Jesus came and they embraced His offer of healing. No struggling and no striving–just resting and receiving.

I too want the kind of miracle they each received, which is why I am continuing to not fall into the temptation of struggling and striving in my own efforts, but rather through faith, embrace the offer of healing that Jesus has extended to each of us. I know that just like each of their situations changed in an instant, mine will too. What is today, might not be tomorrow.

Maybe you too have struggled to lift yourself out of a problem that has weighed you down and you have attempted to do whatever you could, hoping that it would amount to something, but you have been frustrated and let down time and again. If so, I encourage you to meditate on these stories because I find it no coincidence that all three of them received their miracles on the Sabbath, the day of rest. I believe God wants each of us to cease from all struggling and accept the offer He extends to turn our situations around. Jesus has already done the work on the cross in order for you to receive your miracle. I believe that sometimes all you have to do is rest.

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