ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, SEPTEMBER 23rd, I was sitting at my desk at work when Paige called. She had a blood test that morning, and we were just waiting for the results from the lab. It was just after noon when the doctor called her, and she in turn called me. So I was definitely expecting the call. Though we had waited over 5 years for children, those approximately 4 hours between the time of the blood test and the time of that phone call felt like some of the longest hours of our waiting.
When Paige finally called, I was sitting at my desk trying to channel what little focus I had that day on preparing for a big meeting I was to lead at 1:30. But as soon as that phone started vibrating on my desk, everything I had been working on quickly disappeared from my mind. In one smooth motion, I picked up the phone, started walking to an empty office about 20 feet from my desk, and touched the screen to answer.
"Hey there," I said nervously as I closed the door to the small room.
What exactly Paige said next I can't really remember. The specific words in that phone conversation are foggy now. But the gist of it I will never forget: Dr. Johnson had called and told Paige she was pregnant!
I think there was a short, silent pause as my serious face transformed into a smile. I chuckled awkwardly as I sat back in near-disbelief. (I wonder if that's similar to how Abram's wife Sarai felt when she first heard that she would conceive and give birth at her age.)
Could this be true? After so many years of trying—and crying to God in prayers—hearing those words felt like a fantasy. Like a dream I had dreamed many times over, but each time only to wake up to the reality of childlessness. Could all of that now be changed with this phone call? Was that dream finally becoming a reality?
Paige and I probably talked for less than 10 or 12 minutes, I'd guess. And in that moment of happy wonderment, we praised God together out loud. We took the time to thank the God to Whom we had prayed for so many years, to the One Who had now answered our prayers by giving us this pregnancy. As the joyful tears welled up in our eyes, exclamations such as "Praise God," "Thank you Jesus," and similar expressions fell from our lips.
We spent the last couple of minutes discussing our next steps: Who would call whom? We decided that each of us would call our respective parents and siblings, but would wait to communicate much wider than that until later in the afternoon, until after we had wrapped up with work. The call ended with an exchange of tender "I love yous."
In those next 30 minutes before my meeting, I made about 4 phone calls to my parents, brother, and 2 friends who had just inquired that morning. With each call the dream felt less like a dream. Yet it wasn't until the next day that the full realization of what was happening hit me. And it hit me in a rather odd way.
When Paige finally called, I was sitting at my desk trying to channel what little focus I had that day on preparing for a big meeting I was to lead at 1:30. But as soon as that phone started vibrating on my desk, everything I had been working on quickly disappeared from my mind. In one smooth motion, I picked up the phone, started walking to an empty office about 20 feet from my desk, and touched the screen to answer.
"Hey there," I said nervously as I closed the door to the small room.
What exactly Paige said next I can't really remember. The specific words in that phone conversation are foggy now. But the gist of it I will never forget: Dr. Johnson had called and told Paige she was pregnant!
I think there was a short, silent pause as my serious face transformed into a smile. I chuckled awkwardly as I sat back in near-disbelief. (I wonder if that's similar to how Abram's wife Sarai felt when she first heard that she would conceive and give birth at her age.)
Could this be true? After so many years of trying—and crying to God in prayers—hearing those words felt like a fantasy. Like a dream I had dreamed many times over, but each time only to wake up to the reality of childlessness. Could all of that now be changed with this phone call? Was that dream finally becoming a reality?
Paige and I probably talked for less than 10 or 12 minutes, I'd guess. And in that moment of happy wonderment, we praised God together out loud. We took the time to thank the God to Whom we had prayed for so many years, to the One Who had now answered our prayers by giving us this pregnancy. As the joyful tears welled up in our eyes, exclamations such as "Praise God," "Thank you Jesus," and similar expressions fell from our lips.
We spent the last couple of minutes discussing our next steps: Who would call whom? We decided that each of us would call our respective parents and siblings, but would wait to communicate much wider than that until later in the afternoon, until after we had wrapped up with work. The call ended with an exchange of tender "I love yous."
In those next 30 minutes before my meeting, I made about 4 phone calls to my parents, brother, and 2 friends who had just inquired that morning. With each call the dream felt less like a dream. Yet it wasn't until the next day that the full realization of what was happening hit me. And it hit me in a rather odd way.
THE NEXT MORNING I was driving to see our friend's boys play their first tee-ball and baseball games. As I was driving down the freeway in my Jeep, I had the local Classic Rock station on, as is my Saturday morning custom. The morning weather seemed extra beautiful and the blue skies extra clear. A familiar tune came on, and I turned it up. The song started with a children's choir and fed into a raw male ballad accompanied by a simple acoustic guitar and french horn. The song built into a refrain, complete with percussion, organ, electric guitar, and more voices singing,
"You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes,
You just might find
You get what you need."
There was nothing overtly spiritual about the famous Rolling Stones song. A beautiful, well-crafted song to be sure, but nothing meaningful about those words that should cause me to break into tears of joy the way I did.
Or perhaps because I had heard those words numerous times over the past 64 months, and they had resonated with the longing deep inside me: "You can't always get what you want." True, true. And ignoring the part about one's own efforts in trying, the last line also rings of Romans 8:28-truth for the believer: "You get what you need." Perhaps those snippets of thought affected my emotions right then.
Or maybe it was just the beautiful children's choir singing. That's probably more like it.
Whatever the reason, it was in that moment on the freeway as Mick Jagger sang those lines about 21 hours after I had received the long-anticipated good news from Paige, that reality hit me like the most welcome punch to my sternum:
WE ARE EXPECTING!
Finally.
WE ARE EXPECTING!
Finally.
~ David
