Your Prayers Are MIGHTY.

April 19, 2010


Please pray for us.

In working with the creative process of filming our onetimeblind mini movies, I have learned of something called “Breaking the fourth wall”. This means you normally can’t see behind the camera and so you are forced to only be engaged with what you actually see. You hear the actors tell a story and this is reality for you. But the truth really lies beyond that fourth wall. That’s what’s actually ‘real’. It’s where people are holding cameras, lights and microphones. Others are rushing around trying to make sure the scene is going the way it’s supposed to. I have decided to break the 4th wall and let you all in on our intimate journey. The reason is because we really love you and want your prayers. For those of you who are straight and to the point and don’t want to hear the long Smith story, just read the next paragraph and you will get the gist of it. For those who want the gory details of Kat’s heart, read on. And just so you know, we love you all more than words can say.

We want a baby. Please pray that God gives us one.

Many of you know this and have already been praying for and with us for years. Thank you and we hope you continue to petition God on our behalf. I have tossed around the idea of telling the world that we are trying to conceive for a while now. I thought, “Why not tell people and get everyone in the world to pray and believe with us?”. In a stale world where people are robots that idea would work. But our culture has to have a cure for everything. There is always an answer, and everyone has it. We can’t just listen to each other and love and pray. There needs to be a quick fix to make our lives perfect. Sadly, sometimes there isn’t. I don’t blame anyone for trying to explain away the circumstances of life. I have done it myself. To my friends and family and even strangers I apologize for saying stupid things about your sensitive situations. We all take for granted what we already have. We can’t help it. When we meet people we can’t relate to, we honestly don’t know what to say. So we blab off some crazy phrase or word to try to help. It’s with a good heart and intention that this happens, but just so you know, sometimes it’s just ok to say nothing.

Our journey started about 8 years ago when Drew and I were starting to feel that itch. Many of our friends were starting to have children, and we were ready to start a family. It was a struggle from the start as we tried to imagine having children travel with us on the road in the ministry. We had friends who did this and we saw how hard it was. But we also had other friends who had 8 children and made it work. (They are amazing-seriously) So, we wanted to be in God’s will and hoped He would bless us as we moved forward. At the same time a few of our best friends were going through the same thing. I remember we would cry together because our hearts would yearn for a baby as our husbands tried to figure out what the big deal was. (God bless them) We so badly wanted to have children. We didn’t know why we had these desires all of a sudden, but we kept praying. We finally felt like we got the green light from the Lord and so we all started “trying”. I thought it would take one month. It did for my friend. We had heard of a female band that all tried to get pregnant at the same time. They planned it that way so they could all take the same time off for the babies. It worked for them, why not us? We were so excited for our friends and still felt confident that we would soon follow and be getting congratulations from the thousands of people we meet on the road. 8 years later we are still waiting for this.

I know what you’re thinking. “8 YEARS? Why not adopt?” There are 7 adoptions in our immediate families alone. That’s not counting our cousins who were adopted or our countless friends. We are VERY into adoption. I even see myself adopting one day. I AM PRO ADOPTION PEOPLE! But more than that I am pro-God’s will for my life. And we have been very insistent on waiting for God’s green light for adoption to happen. I can’t tell you how I feel wanting a child as bad as I do, and then starting any adoption process-even just looking online etc.-and feeling uneasy, unsettled and no peace. It’s SO frustrating. I can’t believe that God would put these desires in our hearts and then not fulfill them in one way or another. Adoption isn’t out, but it isn’t for now either. We keep checking with God, almost daily, but still He says wait. WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

Prophecy
To believe or not to believe, that is the question.
There are many things I have learned, love and cherish during this barren season and I am thankful for all of it. I am thankful for God’s presence in my life. I’m thankful for hearing Him and feeling Him touch me personally. I’m thankful for the gifts He’s given me (see my story of Hope below), and the people He’s had cross my path. God loves me. I know this. I’m specially picked and anointed. He KNEW me before I was in my mother’s womb and He’s given me purpose for many things. I actually believe all of that. I really do. But being those things doesn’t mean you get everything you think you want or should have. It means intimacy. I would never trade that for anything. However, sometimes being intimate is painful.

I met someone who told me God had never spoken to her before. He wasn’t active in that way with her and she was ok with it. I have prayed for God’s overwhelming love to fall on her ever since. There is nothing worse than not having a connection to the Father. I’m blessed in that I feel Him in my life. I see Him working even in the midst of the pain and confusion I feel at times. For me, many of the times God speaks to me aren’t just words, but tangible things. Without going into too many details I will just say, Drew and I are blessed. We’ve had so many opportunities, God encounters and words spoken over us. We’ve met people all over the world that have heard our story and prayed and continue to pray for us. And as much as I love having these moments they are also some of the most painful moments of my life. If I hear, “Just so you know, every person I pray for gets pregnant” one more time I might lose it. I love their enthusiasm though. They are confident that this is the moment and that it’s no big deal. I even had one person tell me when I asked if he would pray for us, “You can’t conceive? Oh, this is an easy one.” as if the last 8 years have been easy. I have to explain that although I respect them it is God that does the giving of life and we for whatever reason haven’t had much luck with that. But of course we receive that prayer while secretly hoping this person really is the key. Maybe this person really can pray us into parenthood. What is most frustrating about these encounters is that most of them pray the same things over us. Life to the womb, the same number of children, even the same sex born in the same order and then they leave and we are left to wait and then to again be disappointed. This=frustrating. What is God doing? With every month the frustration gets stronger. More anguish. More discouragement. More tears. God is desperately trying to strengthen my hope with His messengers because they get more intense every month too.

The Coffee Is Bitter
There is nothing worse than bitter coffee. We just moved and our favorite, beloved, part of the family, our coffee pot, broke. We aren’t feeling great about our new place so the coffee pot breaking made me even more blah. So for a few days we used a French Press. I love French Press coffee, but the longer you let that thing set, the more bitter the coffee turns. I don’t know if that’s true, but it seemed to be happening to us. There’s nothing worse than really bitter coffee. I fight daily to not become bitter coffee. I wake up and drive to the job I felt led to work (yes, it’s a babysitting job for 3 very cute, well taken care of kids=torture) and then come home to my quiet home while hearing about how lucky I am to have the silence. (Just when I wrote ‘silence’ a little kid sitting behind me on this plane started screaming. Seriously. I just burst into laughter)

I can slightly understand the Israelites and their struggle of hearing about “someone” who is coming to deliver them but that “someone” never showing up. They heard that for hundreds of years before Moses came. Then once he did show up I can understand their frustration of wandering in the hot, barren, no life desert and wondering if life-real life- was just around the corner. In my beginning years of trying to conceive I listened to Sara Groves Painting Pictures of Egypt and was convicted of “if it comes to quick I may not appreciate it. Is that the reason for all this time and sand?” I thought, “Ok, Lord, I’m trying to be a better person so you will bless me”. And for years I tried to “do the right thing” and just be content with where God had/has me. But you know what? I’m not content. I’m not content with waiting and waiting and waiting. Every month it’s getting harder to fight off those bitter feelings. I can now begin to understand why Sarah made the mistake she did. It was even more intense for her, as there was more pressure to have a child to carry on the family name etc. It meant everything. And so she found a way through Hagar and Ishmael and changed the world forever-and not for the good. Stupid Sarah. But I DO understand. I remind myself there is power in my choice and then I crawl back to my corner and wait some more.

What Can You Do?
I’m making a list of people I know that are in my shoes. It gets bigger everyday. There are a lot of us out there. I talk about it from stage sometimes in our ministry, but I had no idea there were so many closer friends that are also praying, hoping and waiting. God is faithful. I know this. It’s true. I guess I just want people to not only join Drew and I in prayer for our family, but to become aware. Why the big secret? I’ve been asking myself this question lately. Why is everyone so quiet about infertility? Then I realized, they don’t want to hear the things I’ve heard. This “struggle” is so intense we can hardly watch tv as we are bombarded with baby commercials. We can’t to shopping because if I see one more mother walk away from or yell at their 2 YEAR OLD in Wal-mart I might commit myself. We can barely function some days so to open a door to anyone and everyone to give us advice and answers, well, it’s just too painful. It’s too risky. So on behalf of all of us who don’t have screaming kids but wish we did, I have created a cheat sheet for you.

Please, if you ever meet someone who is trying to conceive don’t say these things:

1. You know you have to have sex to have a baby, right? Better get busy! (dozens of times I have heard this one. You know what? –not funny.)
2. Have you thought about adoption?
3. Don’t worry, just relax and it will happen.
4. If you start to adopt you will get pregnant.
5. Be patient, God isn’t finished with you. It’s just not your time yet.
6. Have you been to the doctor?
7. How old are you? You have plenty of time. (For me, this has changed to, “37? oh. Have you thought of adoption?” Nice.)
8. At least you get to have a lot of sex and have fun trying! (Let me take a moment to tell you how much of a lie this is. Yes, I’m getting personal. I want you to imagine a world where an egg is released once every 30 days and you only have a certain amount of time to fertilize such preciousness. You know it’s time because you’ve been obsessively taking your temperature and it happens to spike during the most inconvenient time of the day. Nonetheless you try to not think about the reason you are having sex, to make a baby. But you can’t help yourself. You both hope this is the lucky month and all the planets are aligned, you prayed the right prayers and everything is perfect. (Did you know, even healthy people who try to conceive only have a 20-30% chance of conceiving? Yup, having a baby is a miracle.) And once it’s all over you just cry from all the pressure and past disappointments. All of this to say, trying to have a baby=no romance=no fun.)

And don’t say anything else that makes it seem like you have the answer. The truth is, sometimes there is no answer. Sometimes there is nowhere to turn. Sometimes you’ve tried everything. Sometimes it’s just a God thing.

I hope you don’t think I am mad or hurt by any of you who might read this. As much as I understand the comments above and the reasons for saying them, I just might need help one day with how and where to adopt or which doctor I should go see to help me through my pregnancy. Here’s a good rule. If you have been through infertility, you can say whatever you want. Otherwise, just love the person. I have so many friends who just love me. They might not understand any of the decisions we are making but they just love us. They send quick notes of prayer, scripture, they hug us, they just love on us. And that’s all we need. It doesn’t matter what struggle you have. People just need to feel loved and walk through these times together. We will never understand why things happen the way they happen. I will never understand suffering and why some seem to have to go through more than others, but I do know this, God is right. He is always right. My understanding of Him is SOOOOO small and I just have to rest in knowing that He is right. I might not like the circumstances of my life right now. Or the season I am in, but the bottom line for me is God is right. He is faithful to His word. He doesn’t torture us. He is faithful and kind, slow to anger RICH in LOVE. He holds me (and those suffering or waiting) closer than I know or can feel. And this is true with many of my friends who not only struggle with fertility but many other things. I have another list of friends that are waiting for a spouse. I pray for them often. Everyday I’m like, “Come on Lord! DO SOMETHING!” I don’t know what He is doing. But I am thankful for amazing friends and family, a church that I love, intimacy with Jesus and so much more. There is MUCH to be thankful for these days.

So, I will bring this blog entry to an end. But again, the reason for it was to ask you to pray for Drew and I. We want you to pray in agreement with us that God will give us children and soon, like now. We feel so led to children and like I said, it gets more intense all the time. But we still feel led to wait for the right time of it all. So we just keep ‘trying’ and praying. God is faithful.

Thanks & MUCH deep love for you all.