S7 Bonus 4 | Seeing Fruit in Barren Lands. Infertility Journey with Camie Wilke
In this bonus episode Carla sits down with Camie Wilke, high ticket sales coach, to talk about God’s faithfulness during a wilderness season.
Camie opens up about her 4 year long struggle with infertility and how - even through the trial - she saw God producing fruit in her life.
Be encouraged by this conversation today!
Connect with Camie:
www.instagram.com/camie.wilke or www.camiewilke.com
Finding Strength in the Wilderness
Discover how Camie and her husband navigated the challenges of infertility and financial struggles in the early years of their marriage. Despite the hardships, their faith deepened, and their love for each other grew stronger.
Anchoring in Faith
Learn the importance of anchoring yourself in faith during tough times. Camie shares how their commitment to their faith and prophetic dreams provided them with hope and a promise, even when the waiting seemed endless.
Discovering Fruitfulness in the Waiting
Explore the unexpected blessings that emerged during Camie's waiting season. From strengthening their marriage to building a business and enjoying intentional moments, find inspiration in the fruitfulness that can be found in the midst of barren lands.
Advice for Those in the Waiting Season
Camie offers heartfelt advice to those currently facing their own waiting season. Discover the power of focusing on what you can steward and nurture in your life right now, even as you wait for God's promises to unfold.
Connect With Carla:
Inquire about 1:1 coaching ---> carlaagreswellness@gmail.com
Join In His Image Wellness Collective ---> carlaargeswellness@gmail.com
Come hangout on IG with me @carlaarges
Check out the blog
transcript
[00:00:00] Carla: Hey friends, welcome to Affirming Truths. I'm your friend and host, Carla. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ. My hope is that you will leave each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode and it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review.
[00:00:30] Carla: I am so glad you're here. Let's get started. Hey, Affirming Truth friends. It is Carla here. We are here with another bonus Thursday episode, and I'm so excited about our guest today. We are talking to Cammie Wilkie and here's the thing. I started following Cammie because she is an amazing sales coach. She runs an amazing program called The Powerhouse.
[00:00:58] Carla: Um, I love [00:01:00] getting business inspiration and insight from her, but we're not here to talk about business. She actually on her business page shared a glimpse into a personal journey of hers with fertility. And she said something that really caught my attention. This needs to be a deeper conversation.
[00:01:21] Carla: Welcome, Cammie. Hi. How are you? Oh, I'm
[00:01:26] Camie: doing good. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:29] Carla: I'm so glad you're here. When you mentioned, and we're going to talk more about this later, when you mentioned in, I think it was your IG story, talking about your fertility journey, that there's fruit in like barren lands. I was like, Oh, that's so good.
[00:01:45] Carla: Before we get to that, though. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what your wilderness season, what your barren land has looked like in the last four years?
[00:01:58] Camie: Yeah. Oh [00:02:00] man, it's a journey. So my husband and I got married in 2018 and we were broke college graduates. We had graduated college and we got married two weeks later.
[00:02:12] Camie: The Lord bless our moms for that. I'm sure that they were doing during that time to get their kids graduated and then married and off two weeks later. But yeah, we got married 2018 and we struggled with finances early on in our marriage as often. Broke college graduates would, um, and even more specific to today's podcast, we struggled with fertility.
[00:02:41] Camie: We started trying to have children in August of 2019 and we thought, you know, it was going to be easy peasy because you don't think of it would be anything other than that. Um, we would have,
[00:02:55] Carla: you're young, you're healthy. Right.
[00:02:58] Camie: Right. And, you know, [00:03:00] a month went by, nothing. Two months went by, nothing. And, and I kind of thought, you know, next month, next month, next month.
[00:03:07] Camie: And. Months turned into years and years turned into several years, and it was just a negative test over and over and over and over, um, for four years. And about two years into our journey of infertility, um, we decided to start pursuing adoption. Not that we were going to be putting our own fertility... Like that we were giving up on it, but adoption had always been on my heart and it felt like a very natural next step and something that we prayerfully considered that, you know, hey, if, if having children through natural conception isn't in our, in the Lord's plans for us right now.
[00:03:47] Camie: But adoption is being laid on our hearts. Let's go ahead and pursue that. And so we jumped into adoption, and we're still waiting on adoption. There's a lot of waiting in our story. Um, and so this last four years [00:04:00] have been a waiting season, not only for Um, our bodies to be, have restoration and healing to be able to be fruitful and multiply, but also in a waiting season of getting the call for adoption.
[00:04:13] Camie: And fast forward four years later, it was actually August 1st, same month we started trying 2023. I saw my first positive pregnancy test and it was. hard to believe. Yeah, it really was. I mean, I was, we were praying for it, of course, but sometimes like when you have been praying for something for years and years and years and years, your brain starts to, um, not play these tricks, but put up these defensive mechanisms in order to protect you from, from that pain.
[00:04:45] Camie: And it was really challenging for me to believe or let myself receive this gift of this baby. And so I just remember sitting there for like 20 minutes. in awe and then all of a sudden just tears started breaking down as it started setting [00:05:00] in and we found out there were, um, we found out last week that we are expecting a baby girl and we could not be more happy.
[00:05:09] Carla: Oh, that's so exciting. Um, you know, it's interesting that you said it was hard to receive that gift. And I, I can totally relate to that when you've been waiting for so long, you do try to protect your heart from disappointment. And as much as you say verbally, I trust, I trust, I trust doubt kind of creeps in there.
[00:05:34] Carla: How did you keep trusting for this miracle? In the face of that, in that doubt, that disappointment. Yeah, well,
[00:05:47] Camie: one thing that was really helpful that we truly anchored ourselves in, um, what we deep into ourselves in our faith. And my husband and I feel like that we've kind of the [00:06:00] traditional, like, Oh, I've always believed in the Lord, but we were pretty passive believers.
[00:06:04] Camie: Like, like I would Luke warm even to say, and when we were faced with this major trial in our life, and I would say that it was probably the first Huge trial not to say that we were there weren't like some small hills in our lives that we've we've walked, but this was the first mountain that we really felt like we were climbing and we were newly married was another thing.
[00:06:26] Camie: And so fertility challenges, specifically. With a marriage can be really challenging. We are really grateful that our marriage got deeper and, and we felt more connected than ever before, but that wasn't without effort. And the, what we believe was our secret sauce, if you will, was really anchoring ourself in the Lord.
[00:06:49] Camie: We, uh, it was during COVID shortly after we started trying COVID hit. And so, you know, churches were closed, but we started tuning into an online church. Um, because that's all that was [00:07:00] available. And we both were just like hit in the face in the best way with the Lord's word. And then as time went on, the Lord actually gave a few prophetic dreams, one to me and then one to my husband.
[00:07:13] Camie: It wasn't until several years later, but those dreams. were incredibly vivid and they felt like more than dreams, almost like, like visions. And those were really anchoring for us that, you know, we don't know how this is going to happen, but both my husband and I had a prophetic dream that like someday we would be pregnant.
[00:07:34] Camie: Didn't know when, didn't know how, but that someday it was a promise that was going to happen.
[00:07:39] Carla: Hmm. Isn't God so good that he gives us hope? And he gives us something to cling to. Um, so I love that you say that it brought you closer and that you anchored in, but did you ever during this time have a moment of Why [00:08:00] God?
[00:08:00] Carla: Did you and God ever have some big conversations like why I'm a little bit angry and was there any type of wrestling with God during this period that you had to do?
[00:08:14] Camie: 100%. So, so, so much. And even still today, like the Lord will convict my heart that, Hey, Cam, you're not trusting me. And when I, I did a lot of work around this with, um, a Christian mindset mentor, and she helped me realize that I.
[00:08:33] Camie: Developed this wound. Now, it wasn't a wound from the Lord, because obviously we know that the Lord doesn't give us wounds, but it was a wound that was created by my own expectation of what I thought was going to happen, when I thought it was going to happen, and because my expectations weren't met according to my timeline, I developed a wound and almost like a distrust in the Lord.
[00:08:53] Camie: Had nothing to do with God. Had, God didn't do anything wrong, but I almost became offended [00:09:00] by God. Like, How could you possibly give them a baby and not me? And we were also, um, still are. We're, you know, knee deep in the world of adoption as well. And that tends to be, like, really, um, sensitive territory. But we were, you know, observing these, these adoption webinars.
[00:09:20] Camie: We were learning about our adoption to equip ourselves. And sometimes, It can be easy to feel like, well, God, like, why, why wouldn't you just give us a baby and instead of having us walk this really long journey will, you know, so and so they weren't even expecting it and, and they're placing their child for adoption.
[00:09:39] Camie: Like, wouldn't it have been so much easier Lord for you just to have answered our prayer the first time around. And so there was a hundred percent, a lot of wrestling with the Lord. And sourness, but looking back, I'm able to see that that was brought on by my own expectations of God, you know, [00:10:00] kind of treating God like a genie, like, Hey, and if you don't do it by this time, I'm going to be upset.
[00:10:05] Camie: Rather than trusting in the Lord's timing and it was just last week, um, our church, our pastor said, um, a verse, I can't remember quite, I want to say it's like in second Timothy, but I'll paraphrase the verse. It was like, the God's never really late. He's exactly on time for our sake. And now being able to look back of those four years of all the hurdles that we went through, it would have been a hot mess.
[00:10:30] Camie: If the Lord would have granted our prayer immediately, because I told you that we were also really wrestling financially. You know, we were just graduated. My husband had started a new job. I was starting my coaching business. We really wanted a baby and we so were not ready for a baby. And you know, it's kind of like one of those things like when you're like, I would imagine like the, the illustration could be like if a 10 year old walked up to their parents like, Hey, can I like take the car to school today?
[00:10:56] Camie: You know, someday, sure, but, but you're [00:11:00] not ready for that season yet. So, um, a lot of the pain. Yes, I did Russell, but it was pain brought on by my own expectations.
[00:11:07] Carla: Yeah, we do that, don't we? God, here's the plan. If you could just follow along, here's the plan, God, right? And, um, it's so true. His timing is best.
[00:11:18] Carla: But that waiting season can be so hard. And you mentioned, That there was fruitfulness in your waiting. And I think sometimes we can be so blind to that. How did the fruitfulness appear? And were you able to see it as fruit at the time, or did you have to wait until you had some? Retrospect.
[00:11:42] Camie: Yeah. So I, man, I was thinking about this right before we hit record.
[00:11:48] Camie: There was a lot that happened during our waiting season. A lot of really good things. There were, of course, a lot of challenges, um, as one could imagine, but there was a lot of really good things. And some of those good things that happened were. [00:12:00] My husband and I just fell even more in love than ever before.
[00:12:04] Camie: And although infertility is not the only challenge that a marriage can go through, it felt like a really big mountain for us to climb right off the bat. And because of that, we feel that like, man, we have gotten stronger as a couple. Yeah. Right from the right from the get go, which we're grateful for. And so our marriage really deepened our faith had space to grow.
[00:12:29] Camie: I built a business that. Helped financially be able to fund adoption and be able to fund a doctor's appointments, which we didn't have the funding for previously. My husband's career flourished. We bought our first home. We traveled. Oh man, that is our love language. Turns out there's six love languages.
[00:12:50] Camie: And we went on these little trips. And these little trips, they weren't like necessarily extravagant, but like my husband and I decided, you know, [00:13:00] one week and we're going to go, we're going to take a weekend trip to Chicago. And my husband planned the whole thing. It was so sweet to be able to spend that time with the only other person that truly understood how I felt in that season.
[00:13:14] Camie: Um, Lucas and I have, I've always said that, you know, there, there's a lot of couples who experience infertility, unfortunately, um, and every story is different, but there's only one other person that truly understands what I'm going through my exact situation other than obviously the Lord. And that's my husband.
[00:13:31] Camie: And so being able to spend really intentional time with my husband, whether it was just him coming home at the end of the evening, and we got to just spend hours and hours together. Or whether it was us taking, you know, intentional time away and going on a little trip that was so fruitful. And we realized during that time, and I'm so glad that the Lord actually, he, he really did reveal that to us in the moment that, you know, hey, these moments, I'm not saying that they couldn't happen with kids, but.[00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Camie: It would be challenging. It would be a little bit more challenging. And I got to find the sitter. You got to find, we had more freedom to be, to let our marriage grow deeper in the space to do it. And so we, we were waiting for four years for a baby, but we had been married a year before we started trying.
[00:14:15] Camie: So Lucas and I really had half a decade to get to know each other. And we were, we were only dating for 13 months before he, Okay. Excuse me, 14 months before he proposed. So we were, I mean, we were, we were met pretty quickly engaged pretty quickly after that married. And so these last. Five years, four of them waiting for a baby have been so sweet and getting to know the man that I married and falling so much more in love with him than I ever even was before.
[00:14:48] Camie: I
[00:14:49] Carla: love that so much. God is so good and um, that coming together and having that firm foundation as a couple [00:15:00] is going to be such a beautiful atmosphere to bring this baby in. When you guys know each other and have each other's back and have been through the fight together. That's amazing. What would you say to the person that's in their waiting season and they're struggling to see the fruit and they're struggling to hold on to hope?
[00:15:21] Camie: Yeah. Oh, I feel like we could, we could talk about this for like four hours. What would I say? Well, I'll say here, here's what I wish that Kami today could go back and tell Kami. two, three, four years ago that girlfriend, you need to find something to do right now. And that sounds so simplistic, but, but really, um, because if I allowed my mind, because I did several times, I allowed my mind to hyper focus on the lack and I was listening to a sermon or not, not a sermon, just a little video on Instagram today.
[00:15:58] Camie: And I wish that [00:16:00] I had the genius to have understood this, but in the moment, but it was revealed to me that like the first temptation. In the world that led to the first sin committed in the world was the hyper focus on lack. It was Adam and Eve recognizing that, hey, there's one tree that just isn't, we can't go eat from.
[00:16:22] Camie: And instead of looking at All the other trees, because that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in the middle of the garden, so they had to bypass all of the trees that they could eat fruit from in order to get to that tree, the one tree that they couldn't, it, it, we, we are so primed as humans to focus on the lack and oh man, did I spend a lot of time in the last four years focusing on what wasn't happening.
[00:16:47] Camie: And so if I could go back and tell myself like Kami, What do you need to do in this season? I would say go find a garden and start tilling it. Mm-hmm. Okay. The fertility garden, it's not [00:17:00] growing right now and you've done everything from your perspective that you have felt led to do to steward, intend that garden and now it's up to God.
[00:17:09] Camie: So let's go find other gardens for you to tend right now your faith. Your marriage, your business, let's, let's look at opportunities, things that you get to do right now that are maybe simpler or easier because you don't have a baby. How about let's plan a trip? How about let's find another person that we can serve?
[00:17:29] Camie: I would say... That I need to find something to do and not to fill my life with do, do, do, and fill it with the actions to numb the pain, but to find something to steward over in this season. And, and we did a lot of things. Like I said, like I built a business, we went traveling, like my husband and I just really grew in our marriage.
[00:17:48] Camie: There's so many good things that we got to focus on. But if we. I believe that for me at least, if I wasn't intentional in looking for something to steward over, then my mind [00:18:00] naturally would have just stayed stuck on the lack. And some days it did. There were lots of days where it just really stayed stuck on the lack.
[00:18:07] Camie: And then there were other days where the Lord just filled me with such excitement for something that he was bringing me in that season. And I just remember like, yeah, I was heartbroken and I would wake up with excitement for something that the Lord had set in front of me to work on that day. I
[00:18:24] Carla: love that because even in our waiting, we still have a call.
[00:18:28] Carla: Even in our waiting, God has still gifted us good gifts. Even in our waiting, we have kingdom work to do, whatever that looks like. If it's in your, your marriage, if it's in how you show up to your church community or building the business that God's put in your heart, like we still have kingdom. work to do in our waiting season.
[00:18:50] Carla: Waiting on the Lord in one area is not a full stop to life. So I love that. Find what else God has for you to steward [00:19:00] and steward it well. That's amazing. Kami, I just have loved this conversation. I've loved, I could talk to you for hours about this because it excites me. To see God move, to see that God moves in the wilderness, to see that God is the God of kept promises.
[00:19:18] Carla: And you've just encouraged my heart today and I know you've encouraged my audience. So thank you so much for being here. Guys, you can find Cammie on Instagram. I will put her handle, especially for any of my listeners who are looking to steward a business in their life. Go follow Cammie. She will definitely pour into you in that way, but Thank you so much for being here.
[00:19:42] Camie: Thank you for having me.
[00:19:48] Carla: Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media, but for not come find me on Instagram at Carla Arges or at affirming truth. Can't wait to see you back [00:20:00] here next week. Bye friends.