On Hoping for a Girl (Take Two.)

(you can find Take One here.)

Chris took me out on a lunch date today and we ate at an extremely yummy pub here in town and ordered our favorite burgers. (The ones with over-easy eggs on them!) I love this place but find it hard to have any kind of meaningful conversation while I'm in there because there is gauranteed to be a 16 foot plasma screen with a football game on it no more than 6 inches from your face at all times.

After our bellies were full we wandered around the shopping center and came upon a cute little children's boutique store. We stumbled inside and I immediately gravitated towards all the cute little baby boy things on display. Airplane blankets and pirate onesies and octopus toys. I tried to hide in the little corner of boyishness because... because it's all that I know. I feel safe there. There's no chance of disillusionment there. Only stalwart practicality and probability. I was looking at clothes with robots on them but I was only seeing safety nets. And I just couldn't let go.

I was actively trying not to make eye-contact with any of the little girl dresses or hairbows or maryjane socks that filled the store with bright sparkly joy. I still have not been able to let my heart go there because I'm afraid the disappointment of not getting a girl will be greater if I let my hope wander off too far in those isles. The girlscout in me is holding the reigns tight. Preparedness! Probability! Practicality!

Then my husband makes me leap. OF COURSE.

He says, "Great boy stuff and all, but where are all the little dresses?"

It took some serious effort to follow him into the unknown jungle of ruffle tights and cardigans. I felt like the whole store knew we only had boys and didn't belong in the pink & purple isles.

But my husband has this way of living from his heart and before I knew it we were swooning over everything we saw. All the while I heard myself repeatedly trying to tell him that there was a 50% chance this wasn't going to happen this time, and that he had to be okay with that, but I also felt God asking me just to take a deep breath and let my hope free for a moment. Every fiber of my being was fighting it. And just when I was about to put my foot back down on that hope again, I looked up and saw that my husband was holding a little dress... and his eyes were full of tears.

This man has such a soft spot in his heart for a little girl that we can't even broach the subject without him getting weepy. This, of course, turns me into a blubbering mess and makes me fall in love with him more every single time. God has put this deep longing inside of my husband, and we know that it is there for a reason. We may not know how or when or if that hope will be fulfilled in this lifetime, but it's there and I don't want to keep trying to stifle it and shush it with my lame arse statistical probability all the time.

Of course we both will be THRILLED to have another boy and he will be loved beyond measure from his very first breath. That goes without saying! But there was something really beautiful about letting go today and shedding hopeful tears over little dresses in the middle of a boutique store with my husband.

It really was just a moment of trust for me. I have not been trusting the Lord with my hope. I have been trying to control it so that I can protect myself from disappointment. But God is asking me to trust Him even in the unknown, even if things don't go EXACTLY as I have them set up in my head, because he is GOOD! He knows our hearts, He knows what's best, and that's really ALL that I need to know. I don't need to control or manipulate my own feelings to protect myself, I can just live from the heart He's given me and feel safe in whatever outcome He sees fit to give.

So, yes, we are still hoping for a girl. But ultimately, as I was reminded today, my hope is anchored to something much, much Greater.