God's Plan

  

   I have finally found time to write up another post! I worked everyday this past summer and my new school program is very intense! But I think I have learned more this school year than I did in my two years at my former public high school! This month I submitted an application to Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA and at the end of this school year when I submit my final grades for my junior year I will know whether or not I have been accepted. Then in early September I bought a handsome yellow lab who has a lot of potential (if he can get over his love for biting).

Me and "King Solomon"
on the day I brought
 him home.

I have been doing good for the most part but recently I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.
     Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is a condition in which a woman has an imbalance of a female sex hormones. This may lead to menstrual cycle changes, cysts in the ovaries, trouble getting pregnant, and other health changes. Some symptoms include irregular periods (I've only had one in this past year), male pattern baldness, irregular and unwanted hair growth on the body, and acne. PCOS also increases the chances of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and weight gain.
     Over the summer I gained 50 pounds and in late October I went to my PCP and had a bunch of blood tests done, when they came back it showed that I had elevated levels of testosterone. My doctor then told me that this could cause me to have trouble conceiving in the future. When I was waiting for the blood tests to come back, and after I found out that it was PCOS, I was so depressed. My first thought was that God didn't want me to have children because I wouldn't be a good mother. That thought horrified me because once I am married I want to be a mother more than anything in the world. At the time I felt that one of the greatest gifts a woman can have was the ability to bear children and raise them, but I now know that that isn't true.
     The ability to have children is wonderful, but simply having a child isn't the only thing that God wants for women. God wants us to be followers of Christ and spreaders of His sacred word. He wants us to care for the weak and down-trodden. He wants us to be fishers of men. He wants us to follow the plan He has written for us. I have realized that having my own children may not be a part of his wonderful plan. In my plan I am married to a wonderful Christian man and I am the mother to as many children as God blesses me with. As much as I want to control every aspect of my future, I need to accept the fact that God knows me better than I know myself. He knows what will use my gifts to the fullest. Being a mother may not do that. I feel called to missions so He may be planning to use me as a long-term missionary, caring for the sick and underprivileged in a third world country, or doing some type of advocacy work in His name. Adoption might be a part of His plan as well. My job might be to be a mother to some of the sweet little babies whose biological mother couldn't care for them.
      Whatever God has in store for me I will accept it with an open heart. Whether I am a stay-at-home mom, a missionary, an adoptive mother, or something completely different, I will trust the Lord and do everything in His name.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."  Matthew 6:25-34