P and I have group of friends that are all about seven years younger than us. They were our first students when we started our Campus Life ministry twelve years ago. We’ve watched them graduate from high school and college, and seen many of them get married. But so far, none of them have joined us in the adventure of child raising and trust me, we have encouraged them to take their time, because when people say having children changes your life?
Yeah, they’re not kidding.
Last week, our friends W and E announced they are having a baby. We are thrilled for them and honestly, a little glad that now we won’t be the only ones who have to find a babysitter or throw ourselves on the mercy of grandparents to get a night out. We hugged them, told them congratulations and I offered my Babies R Us registry assistance services to E because how is anyone supposed to know that you need three different kinds of strollers and a huge tub of Desitin ointment to raise a child?
I remember when I went to register at Babies R Us and was so glad when it was over because finally, now that I had gotten that done and had the nursery decorated, the hard part of having a baby was finished.
I’m totally okay with the fact that God was laughing at me.
Anyway, two days ago, W called P (do y’all love all these tricky pseudonyms I use?) to tell him they had gone in for a twelve week ultrasound and discovered they aren’t having a baby, they’re having TWO babies. Twins.
Bless their hearts.
I told P now that Caroline is three, it would be fun if she were a twin. She’d have a built in playmate and the whole issue of whether or not to have another one would be off the table. I’ve always been a fan of the buy one, get one free system. Of course, I also admitted that the first year or two with twins would probably have been a little challenging. And P said, “Not for you because you would have ended up in the crazy house about two years ago, and I’d be raising them by myself.”
He knows me well.
The thing that makes this whole thing so incredibly special is the backstory. We’ve know W since he was in high school. He dated one girl throughout high school, they went to college together and got married shortly after college graduation. P performed their wedding ceremony. We were all worried about his choice of a wife, but swallowed our feelings because it’s hard to tell someone the person they love might not be the right person for them.
Shortly before their one year anniversary, W called P one afternoon and asked if P could come over to his house. We’d been at the hospital all day while I was getting methotrexate treatments for a molar pregnancy and were exhausted, but P could tell it was urgent and left to go see W. When he got there, he found out that W’s wife had told him she was moving out and wanted a divorce.
They spent the next few hours talking and trying to get her to change her mind, agree to counseling, anything to make it work. She agreed at the moment, but it didn’t last. Long story short, she was involved with someone else and wanted out.
Understandably, W was devastated. This was not the way he had envisioned life working out. I can’t even imagine everything he went through during that dark time.
At one point, he had the opportunity to talk to this amazing, older man who had been through the same situation as a young man. W told us later that this man took him into the basement of his home and showed him a wall covered with pictures of a happy family. There were pictures of kids and grandkids at various stages of life, all displayed as a visible testament to a life well lived.
He asked W, “Do you see anything missing on this wall?”
W said, “No.”
And he replied, “Because there isn’t anything missing. If I hadn’t been through what I went through as a young man, I wouldn’t have any of what you see represented on this wall. God has blessed my life with more than I could have imagined.”
I’m sure on that day his words gave W some hope, but as we all know, when you’re in the midst of a dark time, it’s hard to imagine there is any good waiting at the end. Over the next year and a half, we watched W change into an incredible, strong man. He had come to a crossroads in his life, a point where many people would have given in to the anger and bitterness, but he rose above it. He faced life head on and became a man.
Not too long after that, the beautiful, sweet E entered the picture. I can’t do justice to her sweetness. She is an absolutely beautiful girl, but for all her external beauty, her heart is that much better. We adore her and more importantly, W adores her. They’ve been married almost two years.
Now, they’re having twins.
It makes me tear up as I write this because I’m sure as W looked at that family photo wall all those years ago, he couldn’t even fathom what God was going to do and how it would ever all be okay again. But he trusted Him anyway.
It’s a reminder to me that I don’t need to know the “how” or the “why” of things, I just need to trust. God takes the ugly things, the dark things, the scary things and He restores them and makes them more than beautiful.
