When You're Yearning For Your Yes

Seattle has a gluten free, vegan bakery called The Flying Apron.  I call it my World of Yes.  Living on a restricted diet means I have to scrutinize menus and ask lots of detailed questions before I can eat something at a restaurant.  The Flying Apron doesn’t use anything that will make me sick, so anything they offer is a yes.  That is a super delightful place to be.

When I went to college, a lot of girls were focused on getting married.  I’d always wanted to get married, but I was awkward around guys and my desire to travel took precedence at the time.  Being in lots of weddings (have you seen the movie “29 Dresses”?) didn’t bother me.  Time passed though.  I had a few relationships, lived in China, paid off school debt, and even got a Masters degree. One of those relationships got very close to marriage.  Weddings weren’t as easy after that. 

Similarly, I was one of those girls who grew up playing with dolls and babysitting.  I liked kids and saw myself being a mom someday, but had never had the internal need for it to happen right away.  I was content to hold a baby and then pass him back to his parents.  A few years ago, I flew out to Washington DC to visit a dear friend with a newborn.  I spent many hours holding her son and absolutely fell in love.  I had turned a corner.  I felt ready to be a mother and knew I’d be sad if it never happened.  Even when I traveled to Uganda, instead of the usual “Auntie”, a couple of the school girls started calling me “Mama”.  My 20-something self would have rejected that name, but my 30-something self savored the sound.  More than that, I received it as hope.  My heart wanted to mother those girls, to nurture what God created in them.  Whether I ever had a natural child or adopted, I knew I was meant to be “Mama”.

Comparison is a slippery slope when your heart knows what it wants.  I never stopped being happy for people who were getting married or having kids. I could separate what God was doing in my life from the paths others were on.  I was grateful and wouldn’t have traded lives or anything.  I just didn’t know if the desires of my heart would ever be answered or if I would eventually reconcile myself to what felt like compromises. 

I showed up to celebrate with beloved friends, but I stopped lining up to catch the bouquet.  Baby showers were kind of weird sometimes.   I always tried to sit by that one other single girl in the room who didn’t want to talk about sore breasts.    I was trying to find the balance between celebrating the yeses in other people’s lives and accepting that those things were “no’s” or “waits” in my own.  I’d get upset with God sometimes, thinking that there was something wrong with me.  One night, I read a Facebook birth announcement of a friend who’d named her child one of my favorite names.  It stung.  I wept bitterly, on my knees, and repeated over and over, “God, please let me be a mama.  Please.”  The tears turned into prayers for myself and a close friend in a similar stage of life.  I texted her: “You and I are going to be mamas someday.  I believe it.”  She wrote back, noting God’s timing with my text.  She had just accepted another baby shower invite and her heart was feeling the ache.

In the last year, a world of yes has opened up in my life.  I don’t know why.  I didn’t suddenly become this amazing, marry-able person that I hadn’t been before.  God just gave me Jeff.  Then, we decided to be open to having a family whenever.  A very short time later, I found out I was pregnant.  It’s so very sweet and good sometimes that I can hardly process it all.  It’s not that my life was bad and now it’s good.  It’s that the deepest, most sacred yearnings are being answered.  Compromise is not any part of the equation.  If anything, I’m getting far more and far better than I asked for.

I want to celebrate.  I want to fully feel this joy and talk about it with others.  But also, I haven’t traveled far from that Brooke who had the no’s in her reality.  I haven’t forgotten those feelings.  People I love  have lost babies.  Or, they are waiting month by month, hoping to be pregnant.  Or, they are sick to death of blind dates and just want to connect with that one person who’ll choose them forever.  No one has to compare themselves to anyone else, but all these feelings are real. 

So, today, I want to say to all who love me:  please join me in celebrating my miraculous yeses.  Please share joy with me, thank God with me....if you can.  I acknowledge that some days, some seasons, you just don’t want to go to a parade.  Parades suck if your heart is hurting.  If it’s more nurturing to your soul to not participate in what’s going on with me, I want you to do that.  I love you and know you love me too.  To those who went before me, this is what was going on with me when I didn’t stand up for your bouquet toss.  There is a season for everything under heaven and I stand with each of you in hope of all the yeses God is bringing to pass.