A few weeks ago, Theo was asked to play acoustic for Good Land Church’s worship. They are a new church plant in Milwaukee, and their worship leader could not play that week.

Theo and I were both ‘game’ for a change-up in our usual Sunday routine to be able to help some dear friends and the Pastor at Good Land Church. This is NOT to say that we don’t love our church, but we just felt this was something we could do during this season of life. (Honestly, it felt very purposeful in this hard season too).

God clearly wanted me there, and I felt the message may have been for me alone. Pastor Mike talked about the Basic Ingredient of Faith. He went on to talk about four key players who showed their faith in the Bible. 

Two of them were Abraham and Sarah. 

• At a very old age, God asked Abraham to move his family to a new land. There was much uncertainty and no end in sight. 
• Sarah was promised a baby at a very old age after being unable to conceive one. There was doubt, but she still had faith.
  • Sarah’s story is one that I have found hope through during this journey.

Pastor Mike said three things about these stories that resonated in my heart:

1. If God gave us the complete picture, we would probably be too afraid to step out.
2. If God provides us with the end result, we will probably mess it up.
3. God can handle our doubts and questions.

These resonate with me because:

1. If Theo and I knew that Archer would have Alpers, sometimes I wonder if we would have even had kids at all. If I truly understood what IVF would be like, I don’t know that I would have chosen this process if I had never had Archer.
   1. Because of Archer, we want MORE kids. 
2. If I saw how we would have more kids, I would mess this up. If I had seen what Archer would go through, I wonder if I would have made the same decisions and advocated for him the same.
   1. I’m glad I didn’t know the end result. My faith grew by just trusting God with the end result. 
3. I don’t question God on IF he could have healed Archer. I question God on WHY he didn’t heal Archer.
   1. I have faith that God could have done it because He has done it before and will do it again. I don’t know why Archer wasn’t chosen to be healed in the way I wanted.
      1. Archer was healed in a different way.

At the end of the message, Pastor Mike shares his story about him and his wife trying to have children. Tears stream down my face as I think about this to this day. God blessed their family with a little boy recently, and I know God will bless us with our little one too.