Egyptians

We are often counseled in our religion to liken the scriptures unto ourselves. It means to put yourself in that story. Whether you become a David that realizes you can kill your personal Goliaths or a Daniel who can be safe despite life's lions' dens it is a way of realizing that you're gonna make it because the Lord is right there with you. Likening myself as a child of Israel during the time of Moses just saved me.

The children of Israel were Hebrew slaves to Egypt's pharaohs for hundreds of years for no good reason (other than this is how the Lord chose to set it all up). Pharaoh was nervous about the many-numbered and fastly-growing Hebrews, so he shackled them with lives of slavery to ensure they had no power in his land.

Along came Moses, the prophet chosen to free them, with his asking nicely and asking again and then resorting to the ten plagues. Finally the children of Israel were free to leave. I'm sure there were many Israelites who were more scared of an uncharted, but free, wilderness than a sub-par life of Egyptian enslavement. I'm sure it took a lot of faith to follow Moses out of the only life they knew towards a giant question mark. Sometimes all you've got to pack is your faith and hope in what you profess to believe.

The Lord told Moses to camp by the Red Sea so that Pharaoh would think they were trapped and come after them. The Lord assured Moses that He was doing this so that Pharaoh and everyone else would know that He is the Lord.

Sure enough, Pharaoh organized an attack with ALL of his chariots, ALL of his horses, ALL of his armies, ALL of his men. Everything he had. It seems like such overkill considering they were trapped.  Evil sure comes on strong when the opponent is cornered.

As the Egyptians were encroaching upon the defenseless Israelites, they cried to the Lord, which means they prayed their hearts out. They asked Moses, "Were there no graves in Egypt?", meaning, "We didn't have to take this whole journey just to die by the sea, did we?" I'm sure it was a very scary and confusing moment to see armies of all that you fear coming from one side and an ocean on the other.

Then, my favorite part:

Moses declared to the people: FEAR YE NOT, STAND STILL, AND SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD, WHICH HE WILL SHEW TO YOU TO DAY: FOR THE EGYPTIANS WHOM YE HAVE SEEN TO DAY, YE SHALL SEE THEM AGAIN NO MORE FOR EVER. THE LORD WILL FIGHT FOR YOU, AND YE SHALL HOLD YOUR PEACE.

(The footnote of the word "fight" says "divine protection." Meaning, it's all gonna work out.)

After Moses calmed the people, the Lord told Moses to get the people moving forward, so Moses parted the Red Sea with his staff and the rest is history. They crossed an ocean on dry ground and not one Egyptian survived.

Likening this to myself:

For ten years I have been enslaved to the Pharaoh of Infertility for no good reason (other than this is how the Lord chose to set it all up). Don't confuse my proclamation of enslavement with me not loving or being thankful for my life. My life is awesome, but I have been proverbially shackled to the lack of a new baby for over a decade now. No matter the trips we have taken, the things we have bought, the friends that we have, the joys that we've lived, there has always been the overhanging oppression of not having what I really want. My freedom, so to speak, was a new baby.

It took a lot of time and faith and courage to leave that land and pursue a baby through IVF. You must understand that there isn't a person on earth more petrified of needles than me. Greg doesn't understand because he isn't afraid of needles, but RE pointed out that he is deathly afraid of snakes and that if we were really being fair he should have to hold four live snakes a day.

And so I have left my Egypt, the land of accepting I'll never have more babies, and begun my journey into the fertility-treatment wilderness. The wilderness has been pretty accommodating. I believe I have been blessed to overlook the invasiveness of the methods. I've been manipulated and injected and taken from and given back to and I'm still here to tell the tale. Weary, hopeful, and a little proud of myself I am camping by the Red Sea for the night with only faith in my pack. Tomorrow is the final visit to the doctor. The visit that declares PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT.

The armies ensue. Every fear that could possibly exist is after me on a Egyptian-laden chariot with speed like no other, ready to beat me down and take me back to the land I used to live in. The legitimate fear of it not working is very real.

What if it doesn't work? Did I go through all of this just to have it not work? I could have stayed where I was three months ago and gotten the same result. I didn't need to invest in science, have Greg take a ton of days off work to go to appointments, turn myself into a human voodoo doll and take pills that made my body throb with pain just to be right where I was three months ago, did I? And although I have been praying all along, I turned to the Lord in this darkest moment with a cry unlike any other I have ever offered. And the prompting was to read the story of Moses parting the Red Sea. So I got my Bible and flipped to Exodus 14 and there it was:

FEAR YE NOT, STAND STILL, AND SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD, WHICH HE WILL SHEW TO YOU TO DAY: FOR THE EGYPTIANS WHOM YE HAVE SEEN TO DAY, YE SHALL SEE THEM AGAIN NO MORE FOR EVER. THE LORD WILL FIGHT FOR YOU, AND YE SHALL HOLD YOUR PEACE.

I believe this is the last day that those Egyptians will chase me. Tomorrow I will find out I'm pregnant and while there will surely be new trials in that new wilderness on the other side of the Red Sea, there will be an absence of those old weights, those shackles of fear and despair and longing. Those Egyptians? I will see them again NO MORE FOREVER. There have been too many miracles and too much divine guidance for me not to believe I am cornered right where the Lord wants me.

I am in the Lord's hands, and nobody fights like the Lord.

*Boz Scaggs "Lost It" lyrics, photo taken at Soldier Hollow, Midway, Utah