Photo credit: Matt Green, Flickr
The following reflection was written by Tiger Lily.
I always know what I want. It takes me 20 minutes tops to find an outfit I like and get out of a store. I usually know where I’m going. I have a good sense of direction, and can visually remember the way to almost anywhere after having been there once. I know what I want to do. I’ve wanted to make films and write since I was 8 years old.
I don’t wrestle with decisions much, because I usually know exactly what I want and what I hope for. So as you can imagine, when my husband and I got married and eagerly anticipated having children, I already had names picked out, bedrooms designed, and dreams imagined for those children.
My husband is quite a bit older than me, but it’s never been a stumbling block. If anything, it has been a source of strength. He has been through a lot of hardships in his life and though he always dreamed of having a family, he never thought it would actually happen for him. He met me, we married, and suddenly that dream once again sparked in the darkness and grew into a little flame. I desperately wanted to fan that flame, ready to become a mother at any moment. I wanted so much to give him everything he never had.
Our first year of marriage was wonderful. We couldn’t get enough of spending time together and looked forward to the future with a fluttering anticipation. I was taking pregnancy tests every month, waiting to see those plus signs. They never came.
After that first year life got hard… really hard. Our jobs were draining us dry in every way imaginable, our finances tumbled into a pit with seemingly no way out, my anxiety went through the roof, and his depression weighed him down like an anchor. The second and third years of marriage passed in this tumultuous storm. Still no children. Still no relief from our circumstances. I have always believed that my husband’s calling in life is fatherhood. He is a quiet and gentle soul towards whom both children and animals gravitate. He is a natural in nurturing, teaching, and caring for people and things. He never made me feel guilty, but I certainly made myself feel guilty about our failure to conceive. I felt that I was failing at providing him with children, and the faces of the children we dreamed of started to fade. We had called them each by name, but those names faded too.
At the crux of this pain and devastation, I started watching Game of Thrones. (You don’t need to have seen it to understand the point I’m making). Something happens in the story that really left an impression on me and changed my perspective on our situation. I really connected with Daenerys Targaryen (the character with the fabulous white hair). She was forced to marry a barbarian warrior, but over time they grew to truly love each other. By the middle of the first season/book, she was pregnant and there was much anticipation for the birth of their child.
In a tragic turn of events, her husband is killed and her baby stillborn. She loses everything. She was given three dragon eggs as a wedding gift, and while everyone else believes they are dormant, she dreams that if she carries them into a great fire, they will hatch. As an act of faith, she does this very thing, and when the smoke clears and the fires burn out, she rises completely unharmed with three dragons in her arms. This is how she becomes “The Mother of Dragons.”
This particular moment has stayed with me. In the wake of devastation, she takes a leap of faith and is rewarded for her belief. It didn’t bring back her husband, their son, or the life she had before. Nothing could undo the pain of her loss, but it was redeemed with a new future, a new hope.
God spoke to me through this story, as a metaphor for my own life. When I look back now, I can see that it was for our own good we did not have children. Our burdens were already so hard to bear–to add a child to that hardship might have been too much. I am grateful we weren’t parents during that time of struggle because we probably couldn’t have been available to them as much as they would have needed or deserved. It’s always hard to see clearly in the anguish of the moment, but the Lord held us firmly in His Hand through those years, and our pain was ultimately for our good.
The symbol of fire has been important in my life. It also reminds me of a story from one of my favorite books in the Bible (Daniel), in which Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego encounter the fiery furnace. They are being executed, thrown in the furnace for not bowing down to the false gods of their king, Nebuchadnezzar:
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.'”
Even if God did not bring them to safety in the end, even if he did not fulfill their desire to live and escape such a death, they would not waver in their faithfulness to Him. “But if not” is the most powerful part of that passage to me. Even if God does not help us, we will not serve your gods. He doesn’t always give us what we want, but He always provides what we need to fulfill our calling as His children.
Like Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daenerys, I went into a great fire, a trial, and came back out again. Though covered in the ashes of loss, a new dream was born. I am not saying I’m giving up, or that we will never have children. I still hope we can some day, with all my heart! But even if we do not, I know our lives and our marriage are not devoid of purpose and passion. We have now been married over 4 years and I feel a new contentment in our relationship. Having one another truly is enough. Children could add to our lives, but having them is not the end-game of our union.
There is always hope. I still hope that I can see a child of our own in my husband’s arms, laughing in our home, playing in our yard, and resting their head upon my chest. Whether they are biological or adopted, I hope for them. Right now, I cannot see any open doors for this to happen, but it is always possible with God (lest we forget Abraham and Sarah). In the present, I have my own dragons to nurture–they are the stories I intend to tell the world through film, television, and other writing.
It wasn’t until years later that I could look back and see purpose in the pain we’ve endured so far. One day, I may be looking back upon this day in the very same light. Perhaps even with that dream child in my arms.