“I think I’m pregnant.” These are not the words you want to hear from your ex-girlfriend. It was the beginning of our junior year of high school. We were both Christians and broke up two months earlier because our relationship had become too physical.

Now, she was pregnant.

Roughly three weeks later she was coerced into having an abortion, not by my leading, though I bear the weight of responsibility for it. I wanted nothing more than to own my poor choices, to support her and this child in any way possible. It was a decision I was given no voice in, a choice violently ripped away from me. In the end, words issuing in fear, dread, and confusion won the day. I’ve never blamed her or anyone else but myself for what happened. My heart still breaks for her. I cannot imagine what she must have felt, the fear she must have had, the grief she must have borne, the sorrow she continues to carry.

Fast forward. After nearly three more years of an on-again-off-again relationship, we were married. I was 20 and she was 19. In short, we were young and foolish. She had my heart and I knew I would be hard-pressed to ever find someone who would love me the way she does. I was two years into a four-year enlistment in the Navy, so we moved to San Diego (where I was stationed) and quickly connected with a local church.

Three years later we decided to expand our family. We tried for the next five years to get pregnant, to no avail. At first, each month ended in disappointment, then frustration, then fear, and ultimately, despair. In the background of this season the question that hung over us – the question that exposed the fear, guilt, and shame buried deep within our hearts – was whether our failure to conceive was God’s punishment upon us for having an abortion years earlier.

Throughout this time, I was working for the church we had been a part of since the beginning of our marriage. I was 28 when we decided to stop trying. It had become too painful to pursue any further. We found ourselves becoming jaded and bitter whenever finding out one of our friends was pregnant with their second, third … fourth child. I would become infuriated inside whenever some (albeit, well-intentioned) person would ask “Why don’t you have any kids? … Don’t you like them!?” or “C’mon buddy, if you want ’em, then you gotta do something about it! (If you get my drift.)” So we determined we would release our desire for children to God for the foreseeable future and consider our options sometime in our early 30’s.

Shortly after making the decision to release all of this to God, God provided us with a promise. One morning as I was reading through the life of Abraham, continuing to wrestle with and release our desire to God, God spoke very clearly to my heart saying, “Chris, I am the God who opens and closes the womb. When it is the right time, you will have a child.” I shared this with my wife shortly after, which gave us a mild amount of peace and contentment over the next five years. But we trusted him, all the same.

Fast forward. After a long and difficult season of transition, we decided to leave our church in San Diego and move up to Orange County so that I could pursue my Master’s degree. Leaving our church of 13 years was heartbreaking and refreshing all at the same time. God was beginning a new season and new work in our lives.

As I entered my second semester of grad school, I met one Saturday with my assigned spiritual formation small group. We met to share our life-stories and pray over one another. I felt compelled to share our story with the group. It was something I’d never fully opened and invited others into, from the abortion through our struggles with infertility and the immense guilt and shame we continued to carry, to the promise God had given us. Afterward, the group surrounded me and prayed for my wife and I, that God would bring healing to our hearts and bless us with children.

The following Saturday my wife and I talked about having children for the first time in five years. We prayed together and made a decision to pray through and pursue our options together. Roughly six weeks later, upon returning from our twelfth anniversary trip to Santa Barbara, we found out we were six weeks pregnant! Eight months later we welcomed our first son into the world, then just over two-and-a-half years later we welcomed our baby girl, AND five years later we (surprise!) welcomed another little boy into our tribe.

God is gracious and good. He forgives, heals, and redeems even the most broken parts of ourselves and our stories. Things could have gone very different at many points of our story thus far, but here we are. Healing and redemption never negate the pain and grief we’ve experienced along the way. We will always grieve for the child we will not know until we meet on the other side of the veil, but we are confident that he is whole and complete in the arms of our Savior.