“Settle down.”

Those words have been echoing in my mind lately.

“Settle down.”

I am not awesome at settling. In fact, those who know me best wouldn’t describe me as a “settled” person. Calm down doesn’t always sit well with me. I like to go. Be in control. Keep the pace moving. Know the schedule. Neatly check off my to-do list and manage my ever so busy and growing schedule. So when someone tells me to “settle down”, I kind of click my elbows together in a very Ross and Monica secret message way (fans of the show Friends will likely get that.) But seriously, don’t tell me to settle down, I’m fine thank you very much.

So, just when I feel like I have everything under control – the next cycle plans have been made and my endometrial scratch is complete, these words hit me.

Settle down.

And the more I thought about those slightly repulsive words, I realized that I need to settle, not down, but INTO this time of yearning, searching and waiting. Sometimes, planning isn’t the best thing. While there are certainly seasons to plan, it also can take me away from living in the present. It can make me want to push away the season of waiting, wishing, hoping and praying and make me only look ahead. And when I only look ahead, it makes me think that God isn’t in this moment, that maybe this “detour” to starting a family isn’t as intrinsic and critical as it perhaps God is intending it to be.

I am learning that in times of completely “lostness”, in the times where my journey has more questions that answers, than God is teaching me a huge lesson. What’s that lesson? That I need to have total dependence on Him.

Sometimes when it feels like everything else is stripped away from us, we learn that it’s NEEDED to have everything provided for by God. After all we have gone through, we continue to realize how desperately we need Him.

Aren’t those the ugly moments where some of the best learning comes from? If you are anything like me, every part of me wants to push all of that away and scream “NO MORE! No more pain, no more failed attempts, no more positive tests just to be followed by bad news and awful bathroom trips. STOP!”

When I am totally waiting on Him, my heart is stripped down to its rawest form. When I was little, my mom would never let me catch a butterfly or moth because she said as soon as you touched its wings, they lost the ability to fly, the special dust that held their magic was wiped off. If I am being honest, which I try to be, some days it feels like my magic flying dust has been wiped off. I don’t feel like I can fly as well, but you know what? I do feel like God is keep me company as I heal and instead of being restored with my own magic dust, He is filling my wings with His strength.

What if THIS is the most significant season of growth you will ever experience? What if what you are pushing back on so heavily and so angrily, is building the muscles, strength and endurance that you will need for the rest of your life? Muscle growth is painful. Sometimes it feels like it is too much but you know what, the next day, if you show back up at that gym with determination, more muscles will develop. Your response will become a little more seasoned and you can handle a little more that comes your way.

I am learning, and have not perfected in any means, that we do have a choice. We can choose to make an active decision to take advantage of this hard, painful, frustrating, difficult season and choose joy. It would be sooooo easy to become bitter and I certainly fall into that temptation at times. But is that what we really want? I don’t want to waste this life being known as the bitter infertile who you can’t talk to and who won’t rejoice with your joys.

Laurie Short writes (modified): “We cannot side step the importance of the time we will spend in (waiting), but we can live in hope that God will meet you in (that season) and eventually call us out.”

This struggle, as HARD as it is, isn’t necessarily something that God caused, but may be something He has permitting so that we can grow in this present moment. He is great, mighty, powerful, and has yet to fail His people. Do we really think we are going to be the first? God does respond when we call on Him, turn to Him, and desire Him more than anything else. And then, well, it’s been my experience that He brings beautiful blessings and opportunities into our lives when we least expect it.

So here’s to developing these butterfly wings, as ragged as they feel, because I don’t want to lose the lessons of precious, present moment.