On a recent trip to Nashville we were enjoying a mid-afternoon break at our hotel’s rooftop pool and bar.  Newly checked in, we used this time to get our bearings and plot our next adventure.  The bartender told us about a speakeasy with a secret code entrance.  Um, yes, please, sign us up! He said that the front desk had the business card with the secret code.

Later that night we retrieved the secret code from the front desk and we were off to our secret adventure!  We found the location, hopped into the England style red phone booth, and put in the secret code.  We waited….. Nothing happened…. Uncertain if we put the code in wrong, hubby picked up the phone receiver and dialed again.  Halfway through dialing, the wall that had the phone affixed to it, swung open.  We found ourselves instantly transported into the 1920s. Dim lighting, dark wood finishing hugging every inch of floor and up the wall.  There was even a real fire crackling in the fireplace, dark leather couches and soft music in the background.

One secret door, and one secret combination, made a whole new world opened before us.

For me, this memory closely parallels life. What is the secret combination to life? With each attempt and failure to unlock this secret, life can feel hard, dark, and filled with uncertainty.

One particularly hard and dark stretch of life came when we decided to start our family.  We were in a huge flux season.  My husband’s job had us settling in a new city three hours away. We didn’t know it at the time, but we also began a 5-year period of carrying a mortgage on house we no longer occupied. This move was also without a guarantee from my employer that they would keep me working remote.  I had no friends here, and my husband was now on call 24/7. Mix into all this uncertainty was an early miscarriage, and then not being able to get pregnant. Sprinkle infertility appointments with 6 hour round trip travel to each specialist.  We were in a hard, and, uncertain period of life.  And then the worst came… In three years of trying to start our family, we had lost thirteen babies.

Life was hard; my future felt dark and was brimming with uncertainty.  I felt like I was in that England style red phone booth, putting in the secret code, praying with each in-vitro set back that our door would open this time. If only I had the right secret combination!

Our door never opened.  God said no.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts’, say the Lord.

‘And my ways are far beyond anything you can imagine”

Isaiah 55:8-12  NLT

After we lost our last baby, still in my English style red phone booth of life, I knew I had an important choice to make.

I could give up! Stay cocooned in that red phone booth I could make my home in this uncomfortably small spot. I could wallow in the “why me” game. I could continue my life bitter, barren, and closed off to the world.

OR

I could stay in that phone booth, dial and redial the secret code until my fingers bled. I could continue to try different combination variations, blatantly ignoring God’s no. Eventually, I could force something to happen. I could get that door to open, even it meant busting it down!

OR

I could accept that even though I don’t understand why this happened to me, I know that God is in control. I don’t have to understand His no, in order to accept it. I could realize I may never know the ‘why me’ answer here on earth. I could take solace that my babies never have to experience this hard life filled with uncertainty.

Mamas, I knew whichever option I chose would affect everyone in my orbit. My choice would become apart of my identity. My choice would impact how I lived my life. My choice would affect how I viewed the world, and how others viewed me.  I wanted to choose wisely.

Can you guess which option I chose? 

Mamas, which option will you choose?