Inspire, Spring 2002

18 Spring 2002 Charlie ’91 and Leigh Ann Rogge Pagnard ’92 Charlie ’91 and Leigh Ann Rogge Pagnard ’92 recently experienced some trying times as they yearned to begin a family. Leigh Ann shares how prayer played such a vital part in their experience. Leigh Ann’s Checklist for Success ✔ Accept Jesus as Savior. ✔ Go to (and graduate from) a good Christian college. ✔ Meet a wonderful, godly man. ✔ Marry that cute man! ✔ Find a great job. ✔ Finish graduate school. ✔ Build a home. _ Have two children before age 30. Lord, I checked my calendar, and it’s definitely time to move on with the next item on the list. Let’s do it this month. OK, Father? Not this month. Does this mean I need to wait, Father? No problem. This month is fine, too. Not this month. It’s OK, Lord. They say it takes a few months for this to happen. I can be patient. How about this month? Not this month. Maybe I’m traveling too much, Lord. Charlie and I need a little more “together” time. You’ve given us knowledge about these things. I’ll use it. With a little scientific help, I’m sure we can make it work this month. Not this month. Father, this is really interrupting my plans. I’m not getting any younger, Lord. This month? Not this month. Lord, is there some sin in my life that I haven’t confessed? Please forgive me for my unknown sins. How about now, Lord? Not this month. Does this mean that You know I won’t be a good parent, Lord? Am I not having a child because You can see that I’m a workaholic … a perfectionist … would I push a child too hard? If I’m just being paranoid, why not this month, Lord? Not this month. Not the next month. Not for more than two years … an arduous journey through which I learned how self-centered my prayer life really was. A s a young child, I heard a sermon on prayer. I distinctly remember learning that the Lord answers in three ways: yes, no, and wait. Psalm 37:4 was also committed to memory: “ Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” In my spiritual babyhood, I believed that my loving Father would give me whatever I wanted. Biblical teaching eventually helped me understand that God would give my heart the desires that would please Him. He wouldn’t change to do my wishes; I would change to love His. But it took this circumstance in which God was not giving me what I wanted to let this truth take deep root in my heart. I had a mental checklist for my “successful” life. This involved, among other things, having two kids before I reached my third decade. We first started trying to have children as happy 26-year-olds. We had transferred to Pittsburgh, and the time seemed right. We didn’t give a second thought to our lack of conception during this time, because our “two-to-three-year transfer” changed into a six-month training period, and we transferred back to Cincinnati. Our family plans were (we thought) put on hold until we found a home, and I was more established in my new job. While our home was being built, we prayed together and decided to try again. For the first six months, our prayers were a gentle tap on heaven’s door. Truthfully, we weren’t too concerned. After six months passed, the taps turned to knocks, and I went to the doctor. At 12 months, the knocks turned to bangs, and we went to a specialist, where the real fun began. In the years that followed, I felt like my incessant knocking should make God open the door and do what I wanted Him to do. Little did I know that the door was always open; God was just waiting for me to accept His “checklist for success” over my own. I needed to trust God to bring my desires in line with His. Three of the many important things I have learned through this experience mirror God’s answers to prayer I was taught as a young child: yes, no and wait. YES—It will work out for the good . Don’t be blinded by a snapshot. God wrote the whole video. Romans 8:28 reminds, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Early one morning on the way to work, I smashed my wonderful, first-nice-one-I’d-ever-had-in-my-life car into the back end of a truck. By God’s grace, neither I nor the other driver was hurt, but my car was totalled. Bruised, upset, providentially not pregnant at the time, and crying on my husband’s shoulder, I thought I had reached my limit. I asked the Lord how much more He thought I could take. But if at that very point I could have seen the future stretched out before me, I would have been jumping up and down with joy. A Threefold Answer to Prayer