Defined

Sometimes married women can't have babies. Or, at least, not as many as they'd have liked.

Sometimes they cry about it.

Sometimes life doesn't go the way we want it to.

And even when we know that we know that we know that God is in control and that His plans are the very best, sometimes we cry because we wouldn't have written the story in quite the same way and letting go of our draft--as terrible as it might have been--isn't always easy.

Sometimes we've come to terms with things.

Sometimes we've prayerfully acknowledged and accepted that it's time to stop trying. Sometimes we've gone so far as to make sure that we won't spend every month for the next twenty years wondering.

And we're content.

We're so glad that the story is God's because we wouldn't have what we have now if we'd had it our way.

Still.

Sometimes we can be at peace and our minds can be clear and our hearts can be pure but it sneaks up on us and when we try to speak we find that there is a lump of tears waiting to be exhaled. And we can't explain it.

It's not jealousy anymore. We know because we remember what that felt like. It's not sinful anymore. (Or, at least, when we're really honest, we don't think it is.) It's nothing like the bitterness that we once carried. And we feel real joy and it isn't forced and we are so, so happy. We have everything we ever really wanted. We have so very much more than we deserve.

But sometimes the lump of tears leaks out and we wonder if this is our reality. Forever.

We have no explanation because we are so, so glad that we sleep through the night now.

And we're sorry. Deeply. Because we wouldn't trade our journey for anything in the wide, wide world.

All we can think is that maybe we still feel like a failure for not having been able to do this one thing very well.

And we wonder why on earth we feel that way at all.