Never doubt that God knows what He’s doing

From as far back as I can remember, I always had a very clear picture of how much life would be: college, job, marriage, babies. Yes, it was the perfect fairy tale, complete with a patented Happily-Ever-After ending and appropriate theme music! As so often happens, though, reality was a good bit different from my plans.

I met my first husband while we were both students at the University of California at San Diego. We bonded over a mutual love of Ronald Reagan and being part of a strong, loving family. While I was an only child, he had two brothers, but we both enjoyed very close relationships with our parents and looked forward to creating a family of our own one day.

We married on a beautiful summer day in San Diego, with all of our friends and family in attendance, and listened as the priest said that God had created the institution of marriage primarily “for the procreation of children” and were secure and certain that children would be part of our lives when we decided it was time.

Two years after our wedding, we decided that time had come, so we began what we were sure would be a short effort to conceive. After six months with no success, we went to see a specialist and were told that while my husband was fine that I was suffering from “nonspecific infertility”. In other words, I wasn’t ovulating but they couldn’t tell me why. I took pills with no success. My husband learned how to give me shots of fertility drugs that made me a weepy mess, unable to motivate myself to even take a shower. No success. My company-provided insurance didn’t cover IVF so that was it for us – no baby. We divorced a few years later and, looking back, my inability to get pregnant was a huge part of why that happened. Without children, what did we have?

I spent the better part of the next ten years alone. Sure, I’d date someone here or there but nothing serious. How could I be serious with anyone, knowing I’d eventually have to reveal what I’d come to think of as my “secret shame”?

Eventually I decided that I would look into adopting a child as a single mother. As a preliminary step, I signed on to become aCourt Appointed Special Advocate for a foster child, thinking that it would help me in the adoption process if I knew more about what foster children experience after being removed from their homes. From the first moment I saw my case child’s beautiful face, I knew that God had led my path to intersect with this child and his family’s lives.

They were not living in the same home – none of them were in a home at all – and seldom had visits with their siblings, but with a few phone calls and more than a few gallons of gasoline I was able to change that. In no time my life was consumed with running kids all over San Diego County, ensuring that they had someone at their school and sporting events, and making sure that they always knew they had someone on their side no matter what. The ache in my heart where my biological children should have been all but disappeared and my life felt complete.

Five months after meeting the kids, I met a lovely single man who changed my world again. He was divorced, loved kids, and was also unable to have biological children of his own. I knew that he was a man I could give my heart to and make a life with when, just a few months after we started dating, I ran into a last-minute conflict with our plans to go out to celebrate my boyfriend’s birthday: my then 14 year old was starting on the varsity football team for the very first time. I was so torn and felt horrible about letting down either of the “men” in my life, but I needn’t have worried. My boyfriend made the call without hesitation, saying, “Go to the game – the kids must always come first.” He had never even met the kids and wouldn’t do so until several years later due to privacy rules, yet he was already putting them first.

This past April we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Things are not rosy and perfect by a long shot but my life is full of love. It wasn’t the way I’d expected it to happen, but I finally have the family I’d always dreamed of. ~Denise

Follow Denise on her blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.