It's not about me?

I want to have a baby.

How many times have women thought that, even said those words. I know I have said them many times and would often follow them up with some condition: I want to have a baby by the time I'm 25. I want to have a baby after I teach a couple of years.

Somewhere in the last year, an understanding has dawned on me. It isn't about me getting a baby. It isn't about me getting to complete the picture I've had in my mind. It is about the baby.

I don't think I ever fully understood the truth that God is more concerned about the child's life, and how the child will be part of his kingdom, than he is with me getting a baby. Of course, God gave women the desire to have a family, and it's a good desire, and he teaches and blesses mothers (and fathers) through the raising of children. But it is not merely for their fulfillment that he does this, and this is a good thing to remember.

God has a purpose for the child I will one day have. He has a year he wants it to be born, a class he wants it to be in, teachers he wants it to have, friends he wants it to meet, and so much more. There is a purpose and a plan in every month that I am not pregnant, because it is God saying, It's not the time for that person to come into the world yet.

This is hard for me, of course. I do want to have a baby, just like I wrote at the beginning of this post. But I'm guessing that this--the understanding that the child truly belongs to the Lord and has a purpose completely apart from its parents--is a lesson that parents have to learn everyday, at every milestone. We are God's children. We are here to do God's will, not necessary our parents', though hopefully the two will most of the time align.

So, if this proves to be another empty month, I can hold on to this. I can know that it's simply not the time for that life to enter this world. Not yet.