She Waits (Part 1)



Jerod and Natalie holding Austyn in the hospital



I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. Psalms 130:5

This is my best friend Natalie. We are soul sistas. She gets me and I get her. We've been mistaken for sisters based on our looks many times but I think we are really almost one and the same person. We could be real life sisters. I met Nat for the first time on the basketball court our freshman year of college. We were instant friends. She took notes for me in Sociology while I nodded off, I helped her weed the junior high clothes out of her college wardrobe, we cried over boys and basketball, we laughed about everything. We still cry and laugh together, but sometimes I long for the carefree life of college days. Little did we know what different roads our lives would take us on. It's the not knowing that gets you through.

When I asked her if I could write about her she told me to stay away from 2 subjects: "my hair and the 2 guys I dated named Ernest". All I have to say to that is: I would never touch the hair and...how does a person date 1 guy named Ernest let alone 2?

Behind this beautiful smile has been much pain. (Well, literally, a few years back a dentist damaged a nerve and she sometimes has shooting pain when she smiles and kisses her husband :).)  When I first met Natalie she was hurting. Her dad passed away just a year earlier - when she was a junior in high school.  Despite this suffering, she was probably the happiest person I had ever met. I love this joy about her. Shortly after her father was gone, a friend had invited her to a church service and she was saved. She was new to her faith but it was strong and she saw hope and happiness through the pain. From the time we first met to now, her joy has continued to be tested.

After college she fell in love with and married Jerod, the perfect guy for her, and a year later they began to dream of starting a family. Five years later that dream is still on hold as she struggles down the long road of infertility. As she goes to doctor after doctor she never, in a million years, thought this would be her life. But despite all the heartbreak and the pain...she waits.

She listens to well meaning advice from friends and family. She's done all she can do physically to prepare her body for a baby. She watches everyone around her have babies of their own. But she waits.

As her friend, I have had to tell her twice I will be living her dream. She's watched me have two babies and couldn't be happier for me. She's never once tried to take my joy away with her pain. Did she go home and cry after I told her my news or after she visited me in the hospital when I had each of my girls?  Maybe...probably.  She cries over the death of her dream, but she is content, she finds joy amidst the pain.  Mine is the soul that is toubled. How can this be? There is no one who would be a better mom than Natalie. How many hours have I spent on my knees asking the Lord to bless her with a baby of her own? How many hours has she? She waits. She prays, she smiles, she cries and she waits.

Five years she has waited. What is she waiting for? Why doesn't she just adopt? Foster? Why doesn't she do in vitro? These are the questions everyone asks her...asks me. The answer is simple yet the most difficult thing to do in this fast paced, answers-now world we live in. She's waiting on the Lord. She knows every option available to her but she is waiting on the Lord's voice. Not opinions, not feelings, not impulses...His voice.  And when she hears it she will know, but until then...she waits.

I am in awe of my friend. I'm so proud and blessed to call her my friend. This story is titled (Part 1) for a reason. There will be a part 2 and it will be amazing because she waits.

But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. Micah 7:7

Happy Birthday Nat!  I wish everyone could have a friend like you.