By Lois Hewitt

Back in the early 80s, I was in my early 20s and newly married (1st husband). Determined to put the reckless days of my youth behind me.  I wanted the life my friends had…the doting husband, a baby or two, family vacations, and a picket fence.  But the course of my life was not heading that way.

I would take the 30 minute ride to a big town to visit the closest Christian bookstore. I was desperate for advice on how to have that idealic life.  I would browse the Family section for hours. Nothing quite spoke to me.  I did eventually find a few books on infertility issues.  I grabbed them up and ran home to read how to change my life.

As I read them, I realized that even if we had the one thing in common, not much else was familiar to me.  But I plowed through determined to pray better, do better and whatever better so I could achieve my ideal life.

In the books I read about the struggles of infertility along with all they went through, at the end, all had gotten pregnant and got the life they so desperately wanted. So would I, I assumed myself.

I tried all the things they did but to no avail.  I thought I must not be doing the Christian stuff right.  Maybe I was undeserving because of my past.  I was just sure that life would to come, I just wasn’t working hard enough.

Along comes a divorce and a little later a new marriage (there are only two…lol).  This had to be the change I needed. But as the years came and went, a baby never did. 

If I couldn’t be good enough to deserve that life, I basically gave up. I switched gears and lived a life of reckless spending, eating and drinking.  I did spend some time mad at God but mostly ashamed of myself for yet another failure in my life. My failure count was ever growing.

Now is a different time for me. The best realization I could have ever come to was that each of our roads are different. My life was not guaranteed to end up like the lives in the Christian books I read or like I thought my friends lives were like or like anything I saw in movies.

Just because you do this or that, the outcome is not inevitable the way you envision it. Each of our lives is similar in certain ways but there is a uniqueness that is not duplicated. Our paths are our own and will not be like anyone else’s

Trying to be good and trying to live like someone else did not work I found.  Once I gave up the need for an ideal life I was able to understand that a real relationship with Jesus is what I needed. Not to get my wish granted but to change my life completely.  Gratitude replaced entitlement. Peace replaced chaos. Real love replaced fake love.  Forever joy replaced temporary happiness.

As I look back on the person I was, all I see is desperation.  I wanted an unrealistic thing.  I wanted someone else’s story instead of my own.

Giving up in that was the best thing that could have happened to me. Accepting God’s “no” to many of my requests was the game changer. My life has its own purpose. It has its own set of challenges and rewards. The same is true of yours, my friend.  We each have a different path, no one greater than another, but all individual.

One of my greatest gifts was the realization that I no longer had to conform to some preconceived notion of what my life needed to look like. My life today is nothing like I thought it would look like all those decades ago. Would I trade my life, my faith or who I am now?  Not for all the money in the world! 

Is my life all kittens and candy corn?  No, of course not.  Tough times come, insecurity comes, doubt comes but my true faith in God sustains me through the challenges and lifts me up to the mountain tops. Giving up on the ideal has allowed me to live a life better than I ever imagined.