Waiting on the Promise (Part 1)

Back in early October, the women’s ministry at my church hosted their annual Cherished Conference in Ruidoso, New Mexico. On Friday morning each year, different women are asked to teach breakout sessions about various topics. This year I was asked to teach one of the breakout sessions and the topic I was given was about God’s promises. This is a topic I’m very familiar with as it is something that I walked through for many years while I waited on God’s promise to me to be fulfilled.

I’d like to share my breakout session with you as a two-part blog. Part 1 will be my personal journey and testimony of waiting on the fulfillment of God’s promise to me. And Part 2 will be some encouragement for those that are still waiting on your promise from God to be fulfilled.

Here is “Waiting on the Promise” Part 1…

God’s promises to us are different in so many ways yet are the same. There’s not a set time frame for one promise over another. Maybe you’re single and you’re waiting on God to bring you a husband; maybe you’re married and you’re waiting on God to bring you a baby. Maybe you’ve been saving awhile for God to bring you a new car or a new home. Maybe you’ve been working for a horrible boss or with co-workers you don’t like and you’re waiting on God to bring you a new job. Maybe you’re waiting on your treatment to finish for the “all clear” or waiting on a cure for something. Or maybe, you prayed Proverbs 22:6 over your children as they were growing up and now, you’re waiting for the promise of the prodigal child to turn to God and return home.

Whatever your promise is, God knows it. He hears you. He sees you. And as Romans 8:28 says it, “He’s working all things together for your good.”

I’d like you to find a piece of paper and at the top write this statement:

I am waiting on God’s promise of _____________ to be fulfilled.

Fill in the blank with the promise that you’re waiting on God to fulfill for you. As you read through my testimony and hopefully Part 2 of the blog, I hope you allow God to speak to you through this message and find comfort in knowing God has not forgotten about you or the promise you’re waiting on.

I want to start out by telling you a little bit about me and my story. This is something that I have walked through and have seen the fulfilment of God’s promise to me.

My promise was about having a baby and being a Mom.

Like many women, there’s always been a dream of growing up, getting married & having kids. My plan was to get married & have all my kids (3) by the time I turned 30. That way, I could live the rest of my days raising kids with my husband…the American Dream, right!?!

Well, as I’ve learned and I’m sure you have learned too, our plans are not always God’s plans. Those plans, or parts of them, may turn in to reality at some point, but not always the way we think or dream it to be.

My husband and I were in our late 20’s when we got married in 2003. We had dated for quite a while, so I was more than ready to get going on the family part. But my husband said we should own a dog for at least a year before having kids so we could learn to be responsible for something other than ourselves. So, in December 2004, we got Daisy.

Well, the year of owning a dog first came and went, as did life and everything else. So let’s fast forward to 2013.

We had finally decided to start trying to make a baby. I bought an ovulation kit to help make things easier and after only one month, we were pregnant! We were so excited!! It’d been almost 10 years since we got married and it was time to move forward.

I did a couple of home pregnancy tests and then went to the doctor for the actual confirmation. They said I was about 5 weeks, so they set an appointment for me to go back in a few weeks to hear the heartbeat. We called our families and told our friends. Everyone was so excited for us!

We went in at week 7 for the first ultrasound to see the baby and hear the heartbeat. We were disappointed that we didn’t hear the heartbeat. But friends told us not to worry as most people don’t hear the heartbeat until weeks 8-10. The doctor wanted us to come back the following week and try again so we did and had the same results. The doctor seemed more concerned this time and sent me to have some blood work done to check my HCG level. In her opinion, the pregnancy was likely a miscarriage because the baby hadn’t grown any since the previous week, but the blood test would tell us for sure.

The gravity of the whole experience hit us like a ton of bricks. To go from ecstatic to devastated in a matter of weeks was something we hadn’t experienced before.

The pregnancy ultimately ended in a miscarriage as the baby never grew past 7 weeks and 1 day. To say miscarriage is a hard thing to walk through would be putting it mildly. You can work through your pain and move forward, but it’s something that stays with you. I could be walking in a store and all of a sudden break down in tears. I would get embarrassed because I would just randomly start crying. But a dear friend told me that when I needed to cry, just cry.

About a month later, once everything was finished, I went back in for a checkup. My doctor wanted to send me to a fertility doctor, but we weren’t interested. According to my husband, we were still young enough to try again and didn’t need the expensive measures. We just needed time to grieve.

But by the end of 2013, we still weren’t pregnant again, so I decided to check with a fertility doctor. Although we had been praying and fasting for me to get pregnant again, I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay with me, and nothing was preventing the process. I went through a series of tests and appointments and then decided to have a procedure done just to make sure all was well. A few days before I was to have the procedure, I developed a blood clot in my right leg, which turned out to be a side effect of some of the medicine my doctor had prescribed. I was in the hospital for a few days to clear the blood clot. While I was there, my fertility doctor visited with me and told me we now had to refrain from trying to get pregnant for 6 months! I was really disappointed. It had already been more than a year since we had the miscarriage, and I still wasn’t pregnant. And now we would have to wait for SIX MONTHS before we could try again!?!

Well, that brings us to 2015. I was so excited and ready to go back to see the fertility doctor so we could start everything again. But, by the next appointment everything had changed. I was told I only had a 1% chance of conceiving a child naturally. What!?! The news completely devastated me! The one dream I had always wanted and pursued for so long was now shattered into a million pieces!

I’m not going to lie to you…this news was hard to hear and come to grips with. On top of all of that, our dog Daisy passed away. So now within a two-year time frame, we’d miscarried a baby, had a blood clot, lost our beloved dog, and told our chances of conceiving a baby were slim to none. This was too much! I felt like God had actually given me more than I could handle!

After this, I went into a dark period for a while. I was mad! I was angry! I was frustrated! I stopped praying. The time in my life when I needed God the most, I just stopped talking to Him altogether. I told myself there was no use in fasting or praying because it didn’t work. I had been praying and believing for a baby for so long and it didn’t get me anywhere but heartbroken!

With my frustration, I started withdrawing from a lot of things. I still went to church and put on my happy face, but I stood in the back with my arms crossed and refused to sing and worship. I truly didn’t see the point.

Then one day, a friend of mine asked me to lunch. I had thought about pouring out my heart to her, but I still wasn’t sure I was ready to be so vulnerable or even just to not be so mad. Do you know that God still loves us in our darkest places? And that even if we think we’re done with Him (even temporarily), He’s not done with us? Lunch with my friend that day turned my world around!

I had put myself on an island thinking I was the only person going through this. My husband knew how I was feeling; he was even experiencing some of the same feelings himself. But my friend was a blessing in disguise! We met for lunch and talked until dinner…literally!! =) I felt so much better after talking to her. I just needed to share my feelings and let go of the negative so that God could refresh me and move me forward.

Later that year we decided to get a second opinion from a different fertility doctor. We were given the same answer, but this time, we decided to talk about our options. We took some time discussing our options and figuring out where the money would come from. Once we got everything worked out, we set the plan in motion for early 2017.

But our plans were halted again when we realized the fertility office misquoted the amount of money that was due. Being that fertility treatments are horribly expensive, we only had half of what we needed to pay for everything. So, as we worked to figure out the rest of the money issue, I had another medical setback.

There’s a song that Lauren Daigle sings called “Trust in You”. The very first line of the song is:

Letting go of every single dream, I lay each one down at your feet…

This is what I had to do. I had to lay down my dream of having a baby at God’s feet. I finally realized that I was holding on so tight to my dream, that I wasn’t allowing God to freely move in my life and do what He needed to do. The chorus of the song says:

When you don’t move the mountains, I’m needing you to move

When you don’t part the waters, I wish I could walk through

When you don’t give the answers, as I cry out to you

I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in you.

And that’s exactly what I had to do! I had to put aside the money issues, the medical issues, the “Kara-get-out-of-the-way-and-let-God-move” issues and I had to TRUST HIM.

It’s amazing what can happen when we move out of the way and let God do what God does best…the impossible…the miracle work.

Now we’re in late 2019 and we’re ready to go. We’ve visited with the fertility office; we have the correct amount of funds, and everything is put into place to begin late February 2020. I was very excited, but also very nervous. There was still a quiet voice in the back of my mind saying, “What if…” But I was also too excited about the possibility of what was coming to give it a second thought!

I had a positive pregnancy test on March 19, 2020. We went to have the first check-up at 7 weeks. We were both nervous due to our last experience with a 7-week pregnancy, but God is so GOOD!! We heard the baby’s heartbeat, and it was good and strong!

And we heard his strong little heartbeat at every appointment up until the day he was born. We welcomed our baby, James Hyden, Jr to our family on November 24, 2020. He was born at 4:01am and was 8lbs, 8oz and 22” long. He was born the day before his due date! Ironically, the first time in my household that a Hyden man has actually been early for anything!! Lol!

Our long-awaited promise was fulfilled! If you count the time from when we first got married, we waited 17 years for Baby James. I look in his precious face every single day and just feel God’s blessings pouring over me. He is my rainbow after the storm.

But the fulfillment of promises doesn’t always take 17 years. Maybe it takes more; maybe it takes less. But when God gives you a promise, He will deliver it when He says it’s time. God’s timing is different from ours, but the promise will not expire, and it will not return void! God keeps His word to us…every time!

Thank you for reading my testimony! I hope it brings you encouragement to know that no matter how long you’ve been waiting, God’s miracles still happen every single day. Please come back next week for Part 2 as I share the second half of my breakout session for ways to keep your faith strong during the waiting process.

My First Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day was a few weeks ago. And for me, it was my very first Mother’s Day. It should’ve been my eighth, but it was my first.

You see, back in 2013, I would’ve celebrated my first mom-to-be Mother’s Day, but that dream was very short-lived. In March, we had reason to celebrate that it would be a great year. But by April, we were wiping away our own tears and not in a celebratory mood. Our baby at the time didn’t survive past seven weeks. Mother’s Day that year was just a mix of sadness, tears and broken hearts.

The next several years were mixed with waiting and trying and waiting and trying and waiting. Lots and lots of waiting and lots and lots of praying.

Then in early 2020, before the world shutdown, we found out we were pregnant! You’d think it would be hard to be pregnant in such an environment as 2020, but it really wasn’t. I got to be at home most of my pregnancy, resting and relaxing and getting ready for our sweet boy’s arrival. I know 2020 holds a lot of bad memories for people. But for us, 2020 was the year our dream came true; the year our prayers were answered; the year we brought home our son.

For Mother’s Day, my husband made sure it was extra special since it was the first one we got to celebrate. He sent me flowers and showered me with sentimental gifts, all of which I love and wear proudly. But for me, the best part about Mother’s Day was introducing my son to his great-grandmother for the first time, face-to-face. You see, my grandmother has been in a nursing home for the past few years. And with 2020, I had to tell her about my pregnancy through a glass door; we didn’t get to celebrate at all. So, seeing her this weekend in person for the first time in over a year and introducing her to her newest great grandbaby was the highlight of my whole day! It was a beautiful day, and I will hold all the memories close to my heart for many years to come. For the women still waiting for your little miracle, keep praying and believing! I know the words fall short, because they always did for me on this day every year but do it anyway. My heart breaks with yours because I’ve been there. But I believe that one day soon, you’ll see your prayers answered, too!

My grandmother meeting my son for the first time, face-to-face

I am not inferior

Previously posted at https://cherishedministriesfcfc.com/blog-posts/

Last weekend, I completed a 5k race. I use the word “completed” because I’d be lying if I said I “ran a 5k”. I don’t like to run! Ever! I always used to say that the only way I would run would be if someone were chasing me. 🙂 But, I want to LIKE running. I’m more of a motivated walker and kind-of-sometime jogger…for limited…very limited amounts of time.

I have a friend that, while I did the 5k, she ran a 10k. Notice my choice of words…I “did the 5k” and she “ran the 10k”. Yep…she ran it…all of it! And beat her last time by over 4 minutes! I’m really proud of her…and truly impressed.

I could look at her and say, “Wow, she’s so much better than me.” But that’s not really true. I mean, she is in her own way, but not in a way that makes me inferior as a person. She trains. She runs as often as she can and she practices running. I don’t practice running…or really walking/jogging for that matter. I’m not as dedicated as she is. But that doesn’t make me any less of a person, just different.

I started a new work out a while back and I told myself that I was no longer going to engage in negative self-talk. In my previous workout class, we did a lot of running and I always found myself being the last runner…the slowest runner. I always equated that to being inferior to everyone else…that they tried harder than me or that they were just better than me. But that’s not true either. That’s just what my thoughts would tell me…that because I don’t work out like her or I don’t run like her, that I’m an inferior person.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I’ve always liked that quote and it’s true. No one can. But, no one was…I was. I was making myself inferior to everyone around me. “She does that workout really well…I wish I could be like her.” Or, “Wow, she runs great…wish I could run like that.” It goes on and on and on!!

It’s not that anyone is making me feel inferior…I’m doing a pretty outstanding job of doing that on my own.

Want to know why she does that work out well? It’s because she goes to class every day and works really hard. She wants to be good at it, so she trains and she tries.

Want to know why she runs so well? It’s because she trains day in and day out; improving herself and working on her skills so she can be better.

I can do all of that, too. I just have to WANT to do that. If I don’t want to do that, then I’m not going to have the results that others do.

I have a choice. I can either keep looking at other people around me, comparing myself to them and think about what I don’t have or can’t do… OR…I can just be me. Am I perfect? Haha…no! Could I run more consistently or train in class regularly? Yes. Are there things I want to improve about myself? Yes.

But the sum total of all of that…I can be whoever I want to be and I can do whatever I want to do. The only person standing in my way…is ME!

So I made a deal with myself to stop feeling inferior to other people…to stop making myself feel inferior to other people. I am not inferior. I am exactly who God made me to be. I am created in His image (Genesis. 1:27). I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

If I’m in a group of people and I’m not very talkative, then it’s because I’m more of an introvert. There’s nothing wrong with being quiet; it’s just who I am. If I go to my workout class and only do 5 burpees in the same time it takes everyone else to do 10 or more, then that’s what I do. There’s nothing wrong with that either. Everyone starts somewhere and I can only do what I can do. If I walk and jog a 5k while someone runs the whole time; that’s okay, too! They’re a runner and I’m a walker-sometimes jogger. They’re being who they are and I’m being who I am.

I’m proud of what I did last weekend. I completed a 5k. I walked and sometimes jogged the 5k. I did exactly what I was capable of doing and I am proud of myself.

I am not inferior. I am…ME.

Hello 42

As I sit here and enjoy the last few hours of this age, I think back to how this past year of my life went. First, I try to remember what happened, as with getting older, my memory isn’t as spry as it once was. 🙂 But with anything, I look back and think of all the things I didn’t do or didn’t accomplish that I thought I would. But as I do that, I realize that I don’t want to focus on the past, I want to look forward to what’s next. I can’t fix anything I did wrong; I can’t change anything about the past…the past is the past. It’s there to look at; to try and do things better this year, but that’s it…the past. Over. Done with. Unchangeable. Just leave it behind and press onward.

In just a few hours, I’ll be 42 years old. And as I’ve thought about that today, I find myself pretty excited about it. I’ve always loved celebrating my birthday, but I’ve never really looked forward to any age…much less when I turned 40. It’s a cliché, but really, it’s just a number. It doesn’t define my personality. It doesn’t change who I am as a person. It doesn’t make me any less of someone because I’m older than I was yesterday. It’s simply just two numbers put together to become one. But back to my anticipation of this new year…

Even though it’s technically the middle of the calendar year, I feel like I’m getting a “re-do” for this year…a fresh start. I’m not really sure why I’m so excited for this coming year, but I just have a peace about it. I’m excited for the new adventures that are coming. I’m looking forward to a new season in life. I’m just feeling like it’s going to be a great year…my 42^nd year of life. God has allowed me to be here for this long so I feel He has great plans for this next year.

So I say, “Goodbye 41…it’s been great, it’s been fun and there’s memories I’ll have with me forever. Thanks for a great year!” And then I say…

Hello 42..let’s go…I’m ready! 🙂

The Best Version of Me

Quick Note: Because I’ve been so busy and haven’t had time to sit down and think of something original (okay, original for this blog!), I’m going to share with you a blog I wrote for our church’s women’s ministry blog. I really liked it and got some great compliments on it, so thought it best to share again. And, if you’d like to check out our women’s ministry blog, you can find it at http://www.cherishedministriesfcfc.com (shameless plug, yes I know!).

At the beginning of this year, I decided I needed to make a few changes for a healthier me. I didn’t refer to these as “resolutions” as those tend to be broken by mid-January. I chose to refer to my changes as a lifestyle change. The two areas I decided to focus on were my eating habits (health) and my weight (fitness).

I’ll say that I completed the month of January by being very consistent in my exercise and eating. But what I soon realized is that to see the major changes I want to see, it’s going to take me a lot longer to accomplish them than just four weeks.

I’ve been attending a bible-based fitness program for the last several years, so all the encouraging words of my trainers have started to really click in my brain. Their words have helped me to remember that I need to take this one day at a time. It took years for my body to look the way it does, so it will take a while for me to get it back to where I want it to be. There’s no magic pill or overnight drug that will get me there; only determination and consistency on my part to do it day after day, week after week, month after month.

My weight has been a struggle for me for too many years to count. Even when I was in junior high and high school, I wasn’t happy with my weight. In junior high, I was tall, but I wore a size 12-14. Although I never looked fat because of my height, I never felt skinny either. Then, in high school, thanks to the fact I didn’t have a good, healthy body image, I lost a bunch of weight and then I was too skinny.

The weight has always been my biggest foe when it comes to being happy with me, but it also stems from not being confident in whom God created me to be. I’d like to share a few scriptures with you that have helped me find the best version of me.

Psalm 139:14 says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” And Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them…”

I have paired these two scriptures together and have taped them to the mirror in my bathroom. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made and created in the image of My Heavenly Father.” It helps for me to see this every day; and several times a day.

The scripture helps me to remember that God doesn’t make mistakes and He didn’t make one when He created me. I have to remind myself that God created me just the way He wanted me to be. He. Created. Me. Me. Single, solitary Kara Michelle Justice Hyden. He created me…to look like Him! Have you ever sat long enough to think about that? And how amazing that is!?!

Jeremiah 1:5 says, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you…” Before I was ever a thought or a twinkle in my mother’s mind, God already knew me. He knew what I would look like. He knew how tall I was going to be. He knew what specific gifts and talents and abilities He was going to give me. He knew what special qualities I was going to have that make me unique and like no other person on the planet. And He knew that I would often struggle with my weight and outward appearance. But He created me anyway. God did this. For me! Because He loves me!!

A few years ago I read an article about liking myself for the person God created me to be. In the article, the author challenged the readers to make a list of 10 things they like about themselves that have nothing to do with their outward appearance. I was intrigued by the article and decided to take her up on the challenge. I thought the list would be hard to make, but it turned out to be a pretty easy challenge. And I have my list taped to my bathroom mirror so I see it every single day. And to make it even better, I attached the scriptures I mentioned above to it, so I can fully soak in God’s unconditional love and the good things about myself. For the sake of space and droning on and on, I’ve only listed 5 of the 10 things on my list. Here’s what I have:

My husband loves me and calls me the love of his life
I’m great at organizing and planning
My friends like my sense of humor
Everyone can depend on me
God created me in His image

This helps me to remember that even though I may not always like the way I look on the outside or how my clothes fit; there are good things about me that I do like. And it’s nice to have a visual reminder in the one place I see myself every day…my mirror.

While I will be continuing on with the lifestyle changes that I set out to accomplish in January, no matter what happens, God loves me always; He created me in His image; and this will always be the best version of me.

living by faith

Living out the life God gave me day by day

Category: Stuff about Me