If we build it, will it come?

Remember the 1989 movie, "Field of Dreams," starring Kevin Costner? One of the famous quotes from that movie came in the form of a small whisper saying, "If you build it, he will come." Ray (Kevin Costner) then had a vision of a baseball field. It took a lot of faith for him to plow over his corn field (a strong source of income) and build a ball field. A year went by, without incident, but then, he comes. His faith propelled him to do something that his eyes had not yet seen, but hoped someday they would.

A year and a half ago, Paul and I purchased a baby crib. At the time, we had been trying to start our family for a year and a half. We had recently painted our nursery and put in brand new carpet through out the upstairs. We heaved the giant box upstairs and leaned it against the wall in the nursery. Weeks turned into months and months turned into a year and a half with our crib still in the box. We often thought about putting it together, but felt we should wait until we were pregnant. After all, why build a crib, if you aren't going to use it?

With the start of the New Year, Paul and I have been spending more time praying together and reading the Bible. I have often thought that our nursery would be the perfect room to spend time with God, but as it was, the room was very empty and cold. It hardly resembled our future nursery. Each time I walked past that room, I was reminded of the famous quote spoken 21 years ago, "If you build it, he will come." Now, before you accuse me of hearing voices and falling off my rocker, let me preface it with this: at no point have I ever believed that by us simply building our crib, God will give us a baby. However, I do believe deep inside that we will be blessed with a baby someday. So, I suggested to Paul that we build our crib and begin creating our nursery, with the hope that one day we will have children to fill it.

So, that's what we did. A couple weeks ago, we spent the evening putting together our very first crib. After we were done, we sat there in silence for what seemed like hours, but was probably only 30 minutes. Then, we each took turns pouring our heart out to God. We shared our hopes and dreams with Him, all of which He was already well aware of. We spoke of the laughter and cries we would hear bouncing off the walls of this room. We envisioned the numerous bedtime stories that we would read, while rocking our little one to sleep. I imagined stumbling into this very room at 3:00 a.m. to feed our hungry baby for the 4th time that evening...and because this is just a dream, I am not one bit sleep deprived :)

As I listened to Paul pray, the same verse continually popped into my head. It was one I hadn't previously memorized. I wasn't sure where it was in the Bible, so, I did what I do best and I googled it (I love Google). Here is what the verse says:

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1

Another translation says this:

Faith, as defined in Hebrews 11:1 of the Living Bible, “is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us even though we cannot see it up ahead.”

Wow. That's why we have decided to move forward with building our nursery. There's nothing magical about building our crib, we know that. There is no guarantee that we will be blessed with a baby, this is true. But, we cannot deny the hope that we have inside that one day, we will be parents. So, we build it, and hope that our little one will come. We build it, and have faith that even though we cannot see the future, our arms will be filled.

In our kitchen, our calendar hangs on the wall and in large letters it reads:

"Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."