I’ve been feeling really excited to turn thirty in a couple of weeks because we’re in such a good place. Life feels exciting and peaceful and stable and I feel genuinely content for the first time I can remember. We are right where we are meant to be. The good things feel sweeter because we have known how the bitterness tastes.
But I’ve been feeling ashamed, and like a failure because I grew up thinking you had to have all your kids by thirty so that you’re not an old Mum and don’t struggle to conceive when older. It’s no secret that our bodies are designed to have children earlier. But reading Genesis this morning and I was reminded of Sarah and Rachel, and then as I read Job I realised that God blesses so many women with children in their old age. Their stories aren’t any less powerful than the ones who conceived earlier, in fact they testify of his Almighty power and sovereignty even more - he made barren wombs full of life.
My thinking actually wasn’t biblical. God ordains life.
I don’t need to feel like a failure or feel ashamed. He will give us another child at the right time. He has given Mum a vision of me being pregnant - years before we even had Michael. In that vision she said I was older, she said Michael was a child, not a baby. She even said that we had other children but she didn’t know where they were. I was surprised because I always wanted kids close in age, and wondered why there was such an age gap.
She said we were in a church she didn’t recognise. At the time it didn’t make sense, we knew most of the churches in Auckland. Now we live in Queenstown and everything is unfamiliar it all makes sense. She also said I had long hair, and I had a little braid in it that reminded her of Austria. I held onto that vision as I waited and waited to go to bible school. That little detail of my hair was important, and God knew how important it was to me. A tiny promise that my dream of going to Tauernhof would come to fruition at some stage. That Austria would play a part in shaping our journey.
God knew that we would have to wait. He gave Mum a vision for me to hold onto - when we were in Italy I had excruciating pain during pregnancy with Michael and thought we would lose him, I held onto the vision knowing we had a healthy boy. Then we found out it was kidney stones and the next day I felt him kick for the first time ever, as the train we were on passed through Salzburg, Austria. I knew this place would continue to be special for our family, for us it feels like holy ground, our time here was not over.
Then when we miscarried twice I held onto the promise and then again when we struggled to conceive I held on to what she saw. God knew the whole time. He hinted to Mum that we had other children, now we know that they were with Him.
He gave me a vision of myself at Easter Camp 2026, I was heavily pregnant in a yellow dress and I looked so beautiful and my face was so peaceful. I remember thinking “I don’t think I’ve ever looked like that”. I felt God speak and say “there is no fear in pregnancy, do not be afraid”. It took me by surprise and a week later my IUD fell out.
He knew I needed Mum’s vision early into our marriage, before I was even thinking of kids. He knew I needed the vision of myself in a yellow dress - the same colour that has been a theme in my visions from Him for nearly a decade.
He gave me a promise of what was to come, peace that I could hold while the wait lingered longer than I wanted. Hope that it was in His hands and it always had been. So I choose once again to put my trust in Him and lean not on my own understanding.
