Building a Reservoir of Faith

Each one of our children is a miracle in our lives. Both of us wanted to put family first when we decided to marry and we both wanted a house full of kids. We were young and had years of school ahead of us and no money. We made plans and prayerfully counselled together. We had decided at least one of us should finish school first and felt good about that decision. We were surprised one day after being in the temple together that we both felt strongly prompted by the Spirit not to wait. We didn't know how we would pay for it, but we thought for sure we would have a little bundle of joy in no time. More than year later there was no baby. Our doctor told us that technically meant we were infertile and they didn't know why.

We both have lots of siblings. It never occurred to us that we would have difficulty getting pregnant. Apparently, it never occurred to anyone else. As time went by, we experienced a more-than-soft pressure campaign by family members and others, some well-meaning and some thoughtless, who thought we needed some peer pressure to start having children. We never told anyone but our doctors that we had been trying. Sometimes we politely told others we would let them know when we had an announcement to make. Sometimes we told them to mind their own business. In our better moments, we told them we were so excited to have children when the time was right.

We didn't like being judged by others, but that wasn't what bothered us the most. We were most troubled by the thought that our prompting to have a child right away seemed to be false. Sometimes we wondered whether we must have been wrong about the prompting. Or perhaps we were being punished? We didn't understand why we would be inspired to do something just to fail. And we didn't understand why God would make it so hard for us to have a baby when we knew parents who didn't want children or were unprepared to care for them but had them so easily.

We continued to pray and plan our lives and decided not to lose faith. We decided that our life together would be measured by our own choices, not by anything outside our control. That doesn't mean there weren't hard days. But we decided to trust the Lord and his plan for us. We were surprised when we found out we were pregnant. And it turned out that wasn't easy either. But none of those challenges compared to the difficulty of bringing home our baby who slept peacefully in the hospital, only to discover that he now had colic and simply would not sleep.

In retrospect, we can see that the time we spent longing, questioning, and wishing, was exactly what we needed to build a reservoir of faith we could tap into when we faced the difficulties of parenting precocious young children. We learned to better trust in the Lord regardless of our circumstances. And we also learned to have more charity for those around us, including those we may think are on the wrong path, and even those who we feel are judging us.

-Jad & Kristen Mills