She Laughed--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hey Guys and Gals,

 

I just felt the need to ramble!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Don’t know how many of you know it or not, but Tim and I are expecting . . . .  again.  This makes number three for us.  My doctor says I have a condition called AMA.  Yeah, I suffer from “advanced maternal age.”  Basically that means I’m pregnant and over 35.  It’s kind of comical to me because I am at annual conference this week (the big Methodist meeting that happens every year) hanging out with a bunch of campus ministers.  As I engage in conversations with my brothers I am reminded of and experience a rekindling of my passion for young people, especially college students.  The thing that I realized this year as so many of you came to our ministry as freshmen is that I am old enough to be your mother.  Any one of you freshmen could conceivably have been my biological child.  And here I am pregnant.

 

I just recently read the story in Genesis when Sarah and Abraham, an old and childless couple, find out that God is going to give them a son.  The scripture says:  “So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?’  The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’  Is anything to wonderful for the Lord?  At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son’” (Genesis 18:12-14).  In several ways I have nothing in common with Sarah.  I mean, contrary to popular belief, I am not in my 90’s.  To some people, especially my mom, I am still young.  And while I certainly feel young at heart most of the time, there are days when I physically feel old & worn out: my body is tired; my mind is jumbled; I can barely speak coherently.  You know, I never felt this way until I started reproducing.  Maybe it’s a mommy thing.  Which reminds me of another thing I don’t share with Sarah.  I do have children. 

 

But here are the things I can relate to in her story.  Like in Sarah’s case, God’s sense of timing is kind of funny.  After all, we thought we were done.  I gave away just about everything from our first two.  (Thank God I still have the maternity clothes and breast pump!)  Furthermore I am struck by the juxtaposition of the passions of my heart: a generation of young adults that God calls me to love and my own little family, filled with one precious man I would give my right arm for and  two pre-school boys whom I cherish deeply.  In the middle of it grows a new love for a person I have never met, this child growing inside of me.  This leads me to the other thing I can relate to in the story:  The wonder of God.

 

Because I have that special AMA condition, my doctor sent me to Nashville for a pre-cautionary ultrasound.  It rocked my world.  From the outside, I don’t look pregnant, especially to people who don’t know me and don’t see me on a regular basis.  But within this 12 week belly grows a baby, about 2 inches long, floating, wiggling, waving its arms.  During the ultrasound I could even see the tiny heart beating within its body.  And most amazing of all is that this tiny child already looks like a baby, complete with all necessary organs and tissues.  They just need time to grow.  Seeing that made me realize how wonderful my God is, and how precious and tender is His process of creating life within me.  I wouldn’t have chosen this blessing; but I feel blessed just the same.  One of my campus minister friends says I am assisting God in a miracle.  I guess so. 

 

There are other ways I relate to this story.  Sarah and Abraham had been waiting a long time to see the fulfillment of God’s promise.  In other parts of my life I am waiting too, and not in the pregnant parts.  I am longing for something I can’t even quite explain, I just know I’ll know it when I see it.  The waiting has taken up residence within me, making a home there.  I don’t know when or if it shall ever leave.  I wonder if I too will be like Sarah, believing that my time of seeing that fulfillment will never come because waiting has become a way of life.  What comforts me in my waiting are the words spoken by God to Abraham.  First He asks Abraham, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”  Then God answers His own question with, “At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.”  Both Abraham and Sarah had given up hope of seeing the longing of their hearts fulfilled.  And with good reason.  From a human perspective what they were hoping for was impossible.  But God has a different answer.

 

In my life I wrestle with the impossible longing of my heart.  Yet God’s words to Sarah comfort me.  Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?  At the set time I will return to you, in due season.  This is what I hear God saying to all those impossibilities lodged inside of me.  And if He can knit together this child within my aging womb, then surely He can also fulfill the other hopes I carry in my heart.  At the set time.  In due season.  I just praise Him that the time of fulfillment is already set!  And this precious, funny, and tender God can fulfill your hopes too.

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

 

 

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Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu