It was the day after Valentine’s Day. As I put down the little plastic stick that told me I was not the only soul in the small bathroom, I started to pace, and cry, and pace, and cry. A prayer had been answered. A prayer I had prayed way before I was old enough for it really to be answered: “Lord, please make me a mommy one day.”
Today was the day. And so I paced.
Our new baby, our first baby, isn’t even born yet. Actually, he or she is still the size of a peach or a medium sized shrimp if you’d rather compare with seafood instead of fruit. Nonetheless, our precious miracle’s small size has not stopped his (or her) daddy and me from already getting into some major discussions about how we expect this whole parenting thing to go. I thought that since we’re married, and one flesh and all, of course we would be in agreement on the big issues with raising a child.
The double line showed up before I could even put the stick down – the stick that revealed to me that there was not only one person in the small powder room of the downstairs in our house, but that there were really two. That’s when I decided on new rules for announcing my pregnancy.
About eight weeks ago I found out that by the end of this year I will be a mommy – for the first time. And in that moment it was like I stepped through a door of life that had always been sealed shut. All of a sudden every mommy blogger became my personal, bona fide expert and my most favorite person in the world. Finally I could add to the conversation about morning sickness and weight gain and breastfeeding. And I now knew the meaning of hCG, VBAC, and EWCM. Day after day I began to soak in everything I could about how to be the perfect mommy.
From what I’ve been told, two weeks after I was expected to come into this world I finally made my appearance. That was the first of many of my delayed responses to life. I have never been ready, and life has seemed to always come late.
Except for that dreaded third grade (yes, I said third grade) year when my body decided it wasn’t going to come late and the signs of womanhood began appearing. That was dreadful I must admit. I didn’t want any of that to come on time.
At thirteen as other girls were excited about being invited to parties with girls AND boys, I was still secretly upstairs in my room playing with dolls – contently. When that boy kissed me for the first time at my first boy/girl dance I wanted to hide under the gymnasium bleachers by myself. And college was a whole other experience that expanded my mind to places I never knew existed and quite frankly didn’t want to know about. I was a little naive about life and slow to grow up the way my peers around me seemed to be. But it was good for me. I was safe there.
Then college ended, and I started thinking about what was supposed to come next. Marriage, of course, and that’s what I wanted too. The only problem was I didn’t have a boyfriend, and never had for that matter. Marriage was coming no time soon.
So the years went on and life around me continued to move along while mine just sat there, stagnant, waiting to start. My friends from college were then married and even having babies. I was thirty years old living alone in a one bedroom apartment like I had for the past twelve years. Each year the same as the one before it.
Eventually my time came. When everyone was on the second and third baby I was walking down the aisle hoping motherhood would come later too.
And it did. I am expecting my first baby in October, and I am elated. I’ll be 36. A little late again.
Life didn’t just come late for me in regards to marriage and babies either. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, and just recently have I begun to get a clue. I would love to be able to write some things and have them published. But all I can think about is how old I am now. It seems a bit too late for me, especially compared to all the women my age who majored in English like good writers do and have worked for magazines or published books or even written bestsellers.
As I’ve been thinking about my life and marriage and baby and career, I wonder if all of it really has come too late or if it’s come at just the right time for me.
After all, what kind of wife or mother would I be had I not had the experiences in those years of waiting that taught me more about myself and God? And what would I now have to write down on paper and share with you had the stories not preceded?
I have to rest on the fact that God’s plan is perfect and not for me to control. He knows the most intimate parts of my being that not only do I not know but even if I did I could not understand. He knows what I need to see and learn and try before I can be used by Him in the specific ways He has set out for me.
So the next time I start to look around and envy the young bride or the thirty-six year old with a house full of children or the writer who seems perfect with every word, I am going to remember what God has showed me recently about His perfect timing for me. I’m also going to remember all the men and women in the Bible who’s life seemed to come late, too, but then they were used mightily for God. I am going to thank God for this life His given me to make me more like Himself and ask Him to continue His work in me until it’s to completion – even if that means it comes a little late.
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I walked out of the bathroom, the plastic stick now showing two lines and predestining the rest of my life still sitting on the counter next to the sink, and I began to pace. Back and forth. Back and forth. Saying, “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness”, louder with each lap trying to make what I just learned was growing inside of me would sink in and I would really believe it.
