The Fugitive Moment

I guess it was 2010. It hardly seems possible. I was on vacation with my little family. I was supposed to be enjoying myself, enjoying the moment. Instead, I was awake in that dark hotel room, listening to my husband and son breathe, and crying.

I wanted another baby. I wanted one so badly I couldn't take it anymore. How many times had I wept like this while everyone else around me went on, like it didn't matter? Like they were getting answers to their prayers while I couldn't begin to make sense of mine?

Why wouldn't God want me to have more children? Wasn't that the work He wanted me to do? Be a mother?

"Yes," I told the darkness, "I know I already have one child. That should be enough. But I always thought there would be more. Am I not good enough of a person to care for more than one? Am I that bad of a mother?"

It was Satan's whispers at their most destructive, but I hadn't yet learned to not believe him. I hadn't yet learned to really trust God.

At long last I offered up a prayer of desperation. "Heavenly Father, I can't do this anymore. I can't bare not knowing when I'll have another child. I can't bare feeling like I'm failing you. Please. When? When will it happen?"

I felt a distinct impression that it would happen in October. Warmth rushed over me. My tears stopped. Hope sprang alive in my chest. October. Only three months. I could wait for that.

October came. I fully expected a miracle just around the corner. I will always remember being in the temple that month. The spirit drenched me. I'd never felt so close to my Savior.

And I didn't get pregnant. October passed, then November and December and another year, and another.

I cried alone many more nights. I doubted my ability to get personal revelation. I received Priesthood blessings. I read scriptures over and over. I tried to understand my faith. 

I got pregnant and lost the baby. 

I learned that answers are not always an ending of trial. Sometimes an answer is peace, or an out pouring of spiritual strength. I learned that I was not failing God. He still had work for me to do. I found courage and worth. I found my hands becoming God's in unexpected ways. I could trust Him. I could trust myself. I was strong and it surprised me quite a bit.

It's three years later. I'm sitting at my computer 38 weeks pregnant, waiting with anticipation for the arrival of my second child. I'm temped by impatience. I want to meet her! I want to hold her!

And then the words to a song roll through my head "The fugitive moment refuses to stay."

Three years ago, I though I'd reached the end of my waiting. I literally thought I couldn't do it any more. But like a blink those years passed, and everything in between only strengthened me.

Today, I looked up the words to "Come Let us Anew."

Come Let us Anew

1. Come, let us anew our journey pursue,

Roll round with the year,

And never stand still till the Master appear.

His adorable will let us gladly fulfill,

And our talents improve

By the patience of hope and the labor of love,

By the patience of hope and the labor of love.

2. Our life as a dream, our time as a stream

Glide swiftly away,

And the fugitive moment refuses to stay;

For the arrow is flown and the moments are gone.

The millennial year

Presses on to our view, and eternity's here,

Presses on to our view, and eternity's here.

3. Oh, that each in the day of His coming may say,

"I have fought my way thru;

I have finished the work thou didst give me to do."

Oh, that each from his Lord may receive the glad word:

"Well and faithfully done;

Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne;

Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne." 

Text: Charles Wesley, 1707-1788

Music: Attr. to James Lucas, b. 1726 

Someday, I will read this post again and my baby will be grown. The future will change me, age me, and hopefully make me a better person. But it will all happen one moment at a time. I have today; one day in my journey. I will take it. I will make something of it.