Seen.

Last night we took our family for a picnic dinner and a walk by the beach. We let the kids run ahead of us in a sort of relay race, tricking them into staying close. The sun had already set and the breeze was such a relief after the brutal Summer we’ve had. I looked to you and said, “I love the life we built together” and you smiled and said “I do too.”

On the drive home we talked about how nights like this one are the moments memories are built on. Quiet and seemingly insignificant moments that you look back on one day realizing they were the good stuff.

You agreed with me, and in my prayers later that night I thanked God for a spouse that sees me.

Today marks 9 years since we exchanged our vows in my childhood church’s sanctuary. A couple of years and a series of renovations later and now that same little sanctuary of our church is unrecognizable. The place we stood when we pledged ourselves to life with each other doesn’t even exist anymore, in a sense.

I can remember our day like it was yesterday. I can still feel the nerves that followed me to our reception dinner so I couldn’t eat a bite of the food we carefully selected to serve our guests. Even though memory is a tricky thing and the noise of life tends to drown out the little details, I still remember.

I remember the colors, the decorations, the flowers, the cake, the fellowship with our friends and loved ones. I remember how my momma cried and the beautiful things my daddy said as he gave me away. Many people said it was the most beautiful wedding they had been to, I’ll never forget that.

But all of that could fade away and fall victim to time’s disregard for sentiment as long as I could just remember the look on your face when you saw me walking toward you on that day.

And in time I figured out it wasn’t just because of the dress and veil or that I curled my hair instead of throwing it up in a bun like usual.

It was how you made me feel like I was the only girl in the room every day after that. It was how you knew me that day forward at my highest and at my lowest and still loved all of me.

You saw me walking toward you on that day as the woman you accepted as a whole-body, mind and spirit. Despite her many self-discovered flaws.

I look at our wedding pictures and it’s impossible not to reflect on all that has changed since then. I look at our polished photos of blushing bride and groom and I think to myself, “we were just doe-eyed babies without a clue.”

Nine years have passed since that day and baby, we’ve been through it.

A couple years later we decided to try to make a family, and instead we found ourselves in what felt like an inescapable dark cloud called infertility. I knew you saw me in my pain, unique from your own and yet the same.

Years later we finally got our answers and now you’re helping me heal my body from an illness I never knew I was fighting. You saw me in my anxious ways and jumped into action as my help mate.

It wasn’t long before I figured out that there wasn’t anywhere you wouldn’t go with me. There wasn’t any part of me too scary or too hard to love. I find such peace in knowing that.

The way you love me has given me a glimpse of how my Heavenly Father sees me.

And now that we’ve got a few years of parenting under our belts, you see me when the days are long and life gets hard. When I start to feel like I am losing myself in motherhood, you selflessly offer me the chance to see that the girl you fell in love with is never that far off.

As we received the news that my momma was passing from this life, your eyes met mine with tears as you recognized in me the familiar pain of losing a parent. You never lost sight of me in my grief and you walked with me through it.

So if I had to travel back in time and deliver a message from the future to my younger self on her wedding day, I’d imagine she’d be paralyzed in fear to learn of some of the storms she’d have to weather.

But I’d tell her not to miss this important detail; she’s living out the most important day of her life.

I’d tell her to focus on the man in front of her and the way he’s looking at her right now. I’d tell her that even though life can change in a heartbeat and the best-laid plans will slip through her fingers like the wind, she’s looking at the one thing that’s unchanging, and a God-given love that will get her through it all.

I’d tell her that together, you are unstoppable.

I’d stop her in her tracks and tell her to soak up how she feels right now in his gaze.

I’d tell her to remember how it feels to be seen that way. And to get used to it.

Babies to Love

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said “you don’t have kids.”

She had no idea how those words stung, or maybe she did. She had no idea how badly I wanted her biting words to be untrue, or how hard I was striving toward the dream of becoming a mother.

I collected her cruel comment and added it to my repertoire of triggers for self-pity: “when are you gonna start having kids?” “have you tried [insert unsolicited well-meaning advice here]?” Or “it will happen when you least expect it.”

She didn’t know about the nights me and my husband cried out to God between sobs. She didn’t know how I envied every pregnant body walking past me at the grocery store.

Every. Single. One.

She didn’t know how many days I came home just to burrow into bed because my feelings couldn’t find me in my sleep. She didn’t know how exhausting it was to maintain a happy facade day-to-day, or how hard it was to feign excitement for yet another pregnancy announcement.

She didn’t know how many times I wondered, “when will it be my turn?”

She didn’t know how it tested my faith.

“Unexplained Infertility.”

That’s what the doctor called my silent struggle.

That was his conclusion after exams and procedures and hot tears of frustration and months spent on hormones that came with mood swings so bad, they could give a person whiplash.

(My poor, sweet, unsuspecting husband…)

He framed his diagnosis in a hopeful tone, patted me on the shoulder and left the room. I sat there for a moment in silence, soaking in the frigid sterility of the exam room, then mindlessly fumbled for my belongings and left.

I felt so fragile. One thought could send me spiraling into a darkness so deep that I couldn’t find a way out. I tried to rely on God like a good Christian girl, but He was silent, so I became bitter. And I couldn’t talk about it because I was ashamed and embarrassed, and scared because baring my “scarlet letter” would mean admitting to its truth.

I didn’t want it to be true…

I still don’t want it to be true.

Every morning I crawled out of my pit to go to work and my darkness followed me there.

You see, I worked in the land of babies and pregnant people. Yes, as if being called “infertile” wasn’t enough, I got to take care of other people’s kids for a living. A cruel form of torture indeed; constantly reminded of the very thing I desired most but would likely never happen for me.

Yes folks, I was in a dark place.

But I couldn’t let myself wallow in self-pity, there was no room for that kind of thing.

After all, there were babies to love.

Fast forward about 7 years from the time we decided we wanted to start our family. With support from my husband, family, friends, and our Heavenly Father (who is good even when I don’t feel good), I’ve risen above the dark cloud that encircled my life at one point.

Don’t get me wrong, that all-consuming darkness is still looming. Threatening that if I let my mind go back to that familiar place, I will find myself plunged deep into that cold and hopeless pit.

Please don’t feel sorry for me, that is not my intent in writing this. I write to bring awareness to a topic that few are willing or able to bring to light. If you are traveling your own journey of a similar darkness, please know that you are not alone.

One thing I love most about our Creator is His mission to make beauty from pain.

He moved Joe and I’s hearts from a position of introspection and nursing our own wounds, to a place of redemption.

Our focus shifted to an outward gaze.

A view that opened our hearts and minds to be aware of drug-addiction and how it is impacting the lives of families in our own backyard.

We dropped everything to become foster parents because once again…

there were babies to love.

Not long after, we opened our home to two amazing little people who now know us as “Mommy” and “Daddy.”

Our story is still being written and we haven’t abandoned hope. If there’s anything the past two years have taught us, it’s “where there is great love, there are always miracles.”

I still dream of experiencing every ounce of motherhood. I still long to know what it feels like to have life growing inside of me. I still want to know what a perfect embodiment of my love for my husband would look like. I still have names picked out for a girl and a boy.

I still wonder if they would have their daddy’s ocean eyes and his curls.

But here in the in-between, there are children living in so much brokenness. Children who need a safe place, a voice, a caring adult.

Children who aren’t so different from me because I’m a little bit broken too.

Right here and right now…

there are babies to love.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:7‬ ‭NIV‬‬