The Meaning Behind "Immeasurably More"...

My wife and I already had all the details of our future planned out while we were dating in college. We would wait a year to get married after we graduated, then wait 3 more years till we started having kids, and we would have our third and final child by the time my wife was 32. The plan started off pretty good. We graduated from college, we worked for a year to save money and got married, then three years later we started trying to get pregnant and we did. Life was great! Everything was working out just like WE had planned, until 6 weeks into the pregnancy when my wife miscarried. People told us that it wasn’t unusual to miscarry on your first try, so we shook it off and tried again. Boy, were we good at getting pregnant! Six weeks passed by and we miscarried again. This time we didn’t shake it off as well. We tried again…miscarried. Tried again…miscarried. By this time bitterness and frustration were setting in and we didn’t know what to do. After 10 miscarriages we stopped counting. My wife didn’t want to be around anyone with children, so as our friends began to have kids of their own we quietly withdrew ourselves from their company. It was hard. It was painful. It was tough, as a husband, to watch my wife stare into nowhere knowing there was absolutely nothing I could say, nothing I could do, no love that I could give her to ease her pain. I prayed that God would work on her heart in a way that would allow her to feel like her life was worth something. You see, my wife’s only desire was to be a mom to our kids. She knew that is what she was created to do, or at least that’s what she thought she was created to do.

Time passed by and not much changed. We kept to ourselves and we didn’t want to hear anyone tell us that everything was going to be ok. The only people we were receptive to were the ones that had been down the road we were traveling. I remember my wife telling me years before we had pregnancy issues that when she got pregnant she didn’t want to tell anyone until we were far enough along in the pregnancy to know that our child was going to be ok. For a long time we told no one about our miscarriages. We kept our burden to ourselves. A couple of years into our troubles God gave us a peace about telling our family and a few friends. Of course they were heartbroken for us, but instead of feeling sorry for us they decided to pray relentlessly. One night my wife and I were in the bedroom and she looked at me and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I have to let God have total control of this situation and I must be ok with the fact that He may choose not to give us children.” She had been doing a Beth Moore Bible study and God had spoken to her heart and told her that she had to be willing to give up her desires and allow God to do what He needed to do in His perfect timing. She read Ephesians 3:20-21 that said, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”This verse became my life verse and we expected God to do more than we could ask or imagine!

We began praying this over and over again, and asking God to go above and beyond what we thought He could do. He began using me and my wife in ways that we never imagined, and we were given the privilege to disciple and minister to high school students and watch their lives change for God’s glory. As soon as we let go of our plans, God’s plan began to unfold. It was a plan that far exceeded the plan we dreamed up many years ago. Through the prayers of family members, friends, teenagers, and people we had never met before, God gave us a miracle. It wasn’t until we completely surrendered EVERYTHING to Him that He said, “Let me give you something you weren’t expecting.” Our son, Anderson Price Startup, arrived December 8, 2010 at 7:11 in the evening. Our hearts melt when his eyes meet ours because we see our faithful Lord and Savior in the eyes of our son. Surrender your desires to God today and let God make His desires your desires!