What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Along the path of our journey in life , through whatever we encounter whether its fertility issues or other issues, we are faced with challenges.  Challenges that push us to our edge.  Challenges that turn the stress nob up just a bit higher than we feel we can handle.  Challenges that we aren't quite sure we can even make it out of.  Of recent, my life has been one of those challenges.

A few years back we were up to our elbows in debt.  We had put all our fertility treatments and other medical bills on our credit card and had pretty much maxed it out.  We didn't have enough money to pay bills and we risked losing so much.  We ended up taking out a large loan from a family member.  This loan has been having to be  paid back to the bank they got their loan out of for the last 6 years.   6 years of barely being able to pay our bills but life still moving forward.  Right now we are a couple months of payments away from having it paid off.  But our money to pay the other normal monthly bills is almost non-existent.  Once that loan would be paid off there would be so much relief.  Our bank account would actually have money in it after the normal monthly bills are paid (i.e. mortgage, gas, electric, etc.).  We wouldn't be so stressed all the time. I would actually be able to eat three meals a day instead of skipping meals and sacrificing so that my husband would have food.  Right now, until the loan is paid off, I can't even consider eating let along by some of the essentials like milk and other foods.  We both work and our income doesn't alot for us to get any assistance.  It's  real struggle.  Sometimes I just want to sit down in the grocery store aisle and cry.

Throughout this loan we've been still trying to conceive on our own.  No luck. It was probably a good thing.  Our stress levels have been so high these last few years that we are probably lucky to even be together still.  They say finances and money issues are the thing that leads to most divorces.  It hasn't been easy.  As I now reflect back on how we made it through the last 6 years,  I can only look to the sky and blame that on a higher power.  I know that the higher power I believe in has a greater plan for us.

What is that greater plan and why do we have to struggle so much before we sometimes know what that plan is?  I obviously don't have the answers to that question or else I would be a millionaire by now and not having to struggle like I am.  What I do know is that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.  Because of the challenges financially that we have struggled through, I know how to be much much more frugal, crafty, and disciplined.  Because of the infertility struggles and the brick walls we have hit I have become much more willing to talk about our struggle and hopefully helping others through theirs.

Someday we will look back at the struggles that we have walked through and smile that we made it through them.  We will look at those struggles and think, "Hey!  That wasn't so bad!  I made it through it and I am still breathing!"  While knee deep in it it's hard to see that or even believe there will ever be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Don't give up hoping and believing that your miracle can happen.  Today we celebrate the 6th birthday of a miracle in our family.  My sister suffered through infertility much like I do but with different circumstances.  She had several miscarriages but never gave up hope.  She never said never.  She kept believing even through the pain and struggle of the miscarriages, failed IUI after failed IUI and the years passing.  My nephew was conceived naturally without any fertility treatments.  He had been conceived around the time my grandfather had passed away.  I look at my nephew and see hope.

I am not giving up hope.  I am continuing to believe that miracles can happen.  I wear my "Believe in Miracles" bracelet and know that I will some day be a mom.  But I also know that its most important that I go through the struggle so that I see the beauty of the miracle and the grace in the struggle when its all over.  The greatest thing is that I don't have to go at it alone.  I am blessed with several friends who will walk on water to help.  And I them.  Remember, even through the struggle you aren't alone...regardless of the struggle.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Believe in miracles.