Little Blue Book

There’s this story from early last year that has been popping into my mind lately. And actually, the opportunity to share the story has come up several times over the past couple of weeks, so I thought maybe I would share it over here! I know story hour isn’t really the norm over here on this little blog, but I just really feel led to share this anecdote, so here goes!

I believe it was my birthday in 2013 that, when I was asked what I wanted for my b-day, I told people, “anthropologie gift cards!” Fellow anthro lovers out there know that if you get a gift card from this lovely shop, it usually comes with some really cute packaging or little extra freebie of some sort! Well, in April of 2013, gift cards came with cute little linen-bound blue books slightly larger than gift card size with blank pages inside of it!

Fast forward a few months to late summer in 2013. We had just found out we’d miscarried a little girl (that story here), so I took that opportunity to get really serious about trying to get pregnant again as soon as possible. I decided I would start really keeping track of everything that was involved with Price and me trying to conceive since we’d been trying for over a year without having a baby here on earth to hold in our arms. So I found the little blue book that accompanied one of my birthday gift cards and started keeping track of everything that I thought would be helpful to reference when visiting our fertility doctor! I became so dependent on that book (like, looked at it every. single. day. Often times, multiple times a day!) to even tell me what day it was. It was great! Every time my doctor asked me a question about when I took what medicine, or when my body was doing this or that, all I had to do was reference the blue book (which lived in my purse. I had it with me at ALL times!)

In late January, around the time that our first baby would’ve been due had we not miscarried, the book mysteriously went missing.

I seriously cannot explain it. That book was my best friend and it lived in my purse. I ALWAYS knew where that blue book was! But for some reason when I went to reach for it one night, it wasn’t in my purse.

Nor was it anywhere in our house. I turned the house upside down looking for the book that I’d grown so dependent on!

“Price, have you seen the little blue book I keep in my purse where I keep all of our fertility information?”

“Um, I didn’t even know you kept a book with all that in there. But no, I haven’t seen it… What do you mean by ‘fertility information?'”

“It’s where I write everything down. When I take what medicine. When I get a positive ovulation test. When we celebrate positive ovulation tests if you know what I mean… ALL of that…”

“Oh crap! We’ve gotta find that book! We can’t have people knowing all of that!”

“I. KNOWWWWW.”

The joint effort to find the book continued, but with no success.

It was one day when I was really mad about having lost the book that I just sat down and started praying. “God, you know how bad we want children. You know how important that book was to me! I had everything in there! What am I supposed to be learning here? Without that book, I can’t answer any questions Dr. Isaacs might have for me. Help me, God!”

It was later that day that I just heard this unexplainable still, small voice saying, “Laurel. You became so dependent on that book that you forgot to be dependent on ME! I’ve got this whole thing under control. My plan is perfect and everything is happening just how I’ve planned.”

And it was then that I knew exactly why the book disappeared. I’d forgotten to check in with God every day. I was checking in with the book multiple times a day, but had completely lost sight of the fact that God is the ultimate book keeper!! HE was the one I needed to be checking in with multiple times a day. He wanted me to remember that HE was all I needed in this “let’s get pregnant” plan!

Now I’m not saying that God caused that book to just vanish into the thin air. But I do think He used my thoughtless routine of get the book out – find what I need in the book – put the book carefully back into my purse so I can repeat the process in a few hours and my “mistake” of not putting the book back where it belonged to grab hold of my attention! And boy am I so glad He did.

Because it was just about 5 weeks after the book loss incident that… (Y’all are going to think I’m so crazy but this is just so perfect and so true that only God in Heaven could’ve orchestrated it like this…) we found out we were pregnant with Wilson! NOT kidding. Which, if I’m doing my math correctly, means that we conceived him just around the time that I all of the sudden had no book to reference or to worry with.

Is that not WILD and PERFECT?! I have been thinking about that so much lately for some reason and just really felt the nudge to share!

I’m sorry if that was TMI for any of you… I guess I should’ve warned you in the beginning… But I’m just so amazed at how our big, gracious, perfect God works! He really showed me how to not put my faith in things like a business-card-sized booklet but to put it ALL in HIM. I learned a while back that fear is the opposite of faith and that worry is a sign of fear! And as Price reminds me often, “Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.”

To round out the story, we still have no idea where that book is. It didn’t turn up in the move to the new house, so I think that means it’s never coming back. If I did happen to lose it in public, there is no telling what the person who found it thinks! Thankfully it was filled with code in case someone did happen to pick it up and try to decipher. And I don’t think I had our names in there so Price was able to breathe easy about that part!

But anyway. Thanks for listening. I love that story and I love that it’s been top of mind lately. A great reminder for me in so many aspects of life!

I hope y’all have a GREAT day! Thanks so much for reading!!!