**This story is the inspiration of this blog** 

It’s been written to give you hope when you feel forgotten.

It’s been written to inspire you to be open for God to change your heart and transform your mind.

It’s been written to remind you that what you want isn’t always what you need.

It’s been written to encourage you to stay the course,

for He who promised is faithful!

He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.

Romans 4:20 (NKJV)

My mom always referred to me as her Miracle Child.

If it was up to her doctors, I wouldn’t be here today.

My mother was strongly advised to abort me to prevent serious health issues in the future.

Long story short, she chose me anyway.

I was cast upon You from birth.
From My mother’s womb
You have been My God.

Psalm 22:10 (NKJV)

About fifteen years later, she took me to her lady doctor because I was having some developmental and hormonal problems while growing up.  We visited a few different doctors, but we received no clear answers.

One day, I was staring at the “flying through space” screensaver with starry-eyes because it was the exact moving picture I had seen in a vivid dream the night before when God spoke to me for the very first time.  The stars were coming at me so incredibly fast I couldn’t even start counting them, but I remember hearing God’s voice telling me,

“Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.”

And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

This probably sounds familiar to you because God also promised this to Abraham in Genesis 15:5, when he was still called Abram.  The immeasurable amount of stars surrounding all the galaxies and planets in our boundless universe would make it sort of impossible for us to count, but God still promised Abram his descendants would equal the number of stars in our skies.

That’s still A LOT of stars!

Abram wasn’t ready for the promise to come to life, but God saw the potential in him. 

He saw Abraham.

I was only a teenager and I had finally received news from an OB-GYN on my possible PCOS diagnosis and how it would affect my family planning in the future.  It is difficult for me to admit this now, but the results didn’t upset me then.  In fact, I felt a tremendous bulk of relief because I truly didn’t want to be a mother, or at least that’s what I told myself…

I was scarred as a child when a teacher decided it would be wise to show a group of fifth-graders a heavily graphic video of a random woman giving birth.  Not only was this a great way to provide us youngsters with natural birth control, but that image stuck forever in my little brain and it definitely encouraged me to focus on my education and future career advancement for years to come.

Then as a college student, I was more interested in building a career and finding success, which meant being a wife and a mom would merely become an obstacle to my plans.  My first date ever was during my last year of college and that relationship fizzled out like a flat bottle of Pellegrino.  Career-driven Ally was mostly encouraged by her own peers as they didn’t think she’d get married anytime soon anyway.  In fact, whenever we would talk about the near future, my own friends would joke I’d be the cat-lady of the group when we were to reach our thirties.  The only problem I had with their prediction was that I always thought of myself as more of a dog enthusiast…

This is something I never wanted to write about or even admit publicly as I know of women who’ve had hardships and tremendous pain in their own journey and they are not able to become pregnant or have had the misfortune of experiencing a miscarriage.  I’ve listened and read dozens of heartbreaking and devastating stories about them not being able to bring their own babies into the world.  The last thing I wanted was to celebrate my ignorance and my irrationality by talking about my story, but truth be told, I also didn’t think I’d be good enough with kids; therefore, motherhood did not appeal to me at all.  I was basically doing all babies a favor by not birthing any of them, or so I thought.

Before we tied the knot, I confided in Kenny about what I had been told in my teens because I wanted him to know we might not be able to have our own children.  Kenny believed the opposite of what I thought of myself.

Like God saw the potential in Abraham,

so did Kenny see the potential mommy in me. 

I still held onto the lie that I’d be a failure of a mother and I’d do our children the biggest favor by not bringing them into this sick world.

Secretly, I was hoping we wouldn’t be able to conceive…

But God led me to also tell him about my dream.  It was the first time I even considered telling someone about what God had promised me without wanting to sound like a complete lunatic.  My new OB-GYN didn’t agree with my previous doctor.  Instead, she was highly optimistic and encouraged me to try when we were ready.  After we married,  something in me changed…

I was no longer a dog enthusiast and we decided to adopt a cat instead!

I soon came to learn I didn’t want to be disappointed with the outcome and dismissed God’s promise as just a wacky dream.

In all seriousness, I eventually opened up to the idea of starting our own family of actual children (not just furry animals) and saw it as a strong possibility, but first, we wanted to visit my extended family in Italy before we would even try.  Well, talk about God’s sense of humor because it wasn’t long after we came back from Italy when we found out about my pregnancy.  We were planning for a baby in the next year or two… or ten, but we didn’t think it would happen that soon.  In fact, we were also worried because we weren’t at a place where we wanted to be financially and for a split second we went into panic attack mode as we didn’t feel ready for the responsibilities to come.

A sense of guilt and shame blinded me when I should have been praising God for such a wonderful gift.  Truthfully,  my insecurities drove me to fear of losing my baby because I genuinely didn’t feel like I deserved God’s promise NOW while others had to wait for it much longer. I thought God might punish me for my immaturity earlier on when I doubted his promise and hoped for it not to come true.  It was an ugly facade I wanted to flaunt because I didn’t want to be disappointed when it didn’t happen.  But it did.  And I was BLOWN AWAY by His faithfulness despite my stupidity.

I wish I could say I matured through my pregnancy, but I didn’t…

We each had names picked out for both genders, but I was really rooting for a girl.

Then I had another dream.  I was holding a baby boy with a blurred face and I was calling him Isaac.  I awoke and blamed my hormones for toying with me.

I wanted a girl!

When my doctor informed us we were having a boy, I cried.  This also meant Kenny would be the one naming him since we agreed I’d come up with the name only if we were having a girl.

Once again, God was playing with my head.

I said I wanted a girl!

But I finally saw him.

I really really saw him.

I couldn’t believe we were carrying our future.

Our next generation.

Our Promise.

I pleaded with Kenny to name our baby, Isaac, but he only agreed to it as a middle name.

Just as I felt a strong connection to the biblical figure of Abraham, Kenny’s character was more aligned with Moses.

Moses’ true successor to lead Israel to the Promised Land was Joshua.

In Hebrew the meaning of the name Joshua is: Jehovah is generous. Jehovah saves.

In Hebrew the meaning of the name Isaac is: He laughs. Laughter.

God was generous in His promise.

God was humorous in His timing.

So we named him Joshua Isaac, our Promised Child.

Our legacy.

Maybe that’s where life is born
When our facades are torn
Pain gives birth to the promise ahead

-I Won’t Let You Go, Switchfoot

Don’t give up hope. 

Pain is only a temporary journey to eternal joy.