And If Not

I'd approached Him all these years on this one issue like the beggar I thought He'd made me to be, inconsequential and insignificant before Him. Please God, please God. I repeated words like rote religious petitions, stumbling over myself to get close to an answer, when the One giving the answer wasn't even in my picture. The One on the other end of my requests was behind guarded doors, doling out responses like Santa Claus. And I, apparently, had not been "nice." I prayed as one who believes she is cursed might pray.
Every Bitter Thing is Sweet

Oh man you guys, my world is getting rocked right now by a tiny little book... just 8 inches tall, and 208 pages from cover to cover. But oh man, it's good. I mentioned earlier that I was reading Every Bitter Thing is Sweet by Sara Hagerty. Many of you might have read it. I had wanted to read it for a few months, but didn't want to shovel out the ten bucks (because I say no). I put it on my Christmas list and my mother-in-law got it for me. Every few pages had a line or two that caused my world to shift. It was so good that about half way through it I literally just started over. I didn't want to miss a thing.

Her question from the beginning is one that I've been asking myself for years, but I didn't have the words to articulate it. Her question, "Is He [God] good to me?" becomes the central focus of her story as she deals with infertility, adoption, marriage, and financial struggles. It becomes the lens through which she views each circumstance.

The author says that due to infertility, she began to see herself as cursed. It's not the way I would describe myself, probably because it conjures up the idea of witches or karma or something. But if I think about the word simply as the opposite of blessed, I begin to understand her use of the word. The lives of others, hundreds, thousands of others, are blessed. But this one thing, this one prayer, has gone unanswered... I have not been blessed, so I must be cursed. She writes the following in response to her father's diagnosis of brain cancer, "Of course. This is just how my life goes. Why should I expect it to be different? If I want something, it will always elude me." And I have to admit, that some days, that's exactly how I feel. It's as if infertility has become this Thing upon which my life is measured. The presence of it in my life means that I am not yet blessed, I am not yet chosen. 

I could write ten posts just about the mess, the ugly that this book is stirring up and causing me to confront. I want to focus in on one idea though. Tucked away in the midst of chapter eight is this line that absolutely rocked my world.: "I struggled, instead, with knowing that God could heal me, but he didn't." She writes that part after adopting two children. She was a mom, yet she still felt that way. I don't know why, but that line hit me like a ton of bricks. It sums up my whole experience, this whole wrestling match with God. It's what I've been trying to say for almost four years, but haven't had the words. I'm desperate for infertility to end, not simply because I want a baby, not simply because I want to give birth, not simply because making babies in the bed is a lot less expensive than any other method, but because I'm terrified of who I will be if my "fertile years" run out and He never chooses to heal me. Will I still love Him? Will I be able to stare Him in the face, crawl up in His lap, cry out 'Abba Father' knowing He could have created life with just a breath, but He never did?

It brings out this idea that's becoming more and more popular. She Reads Truth readers have made it their banner cry... they even have a t-shirt (I want!). The idea is this: And if not... He is still good.  This idea of "and if not" is not new. The idea is scriptural, going back all the way to the book of Daniel when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were threatened with death by fire if they would not kneel before the king's idols. Daniel 3:17-18 says, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." It's a hard place to come to. A place where we say even if You NEVER answer my greatest, hardest, most earnest prayer, You are still good. This is one of those "I want to be like that" moments, but I'm not sure I'm there, or at least not consistently. I'm still struggling to process. I'm still arguing with myself that I'd be more blessed, that He'd be a better God if He gave me this one thing. It's hard to wrestle with the thought that your God is all powerful, that He can make something out of nothing, and yet, what if He doesn't?

The author eventually comes to see that her life was blessed, in ways she wasn't looking for, in ways she didn't expect, in ways she didn't request. And part of that blessing was infertility… it's not even a silver lining kind of thing. Infertility changed her. As myself and many others have experienced, infertility is like a glacier, slowly carving out the terrain of your life. Infertility made her more open, more vulnerable with her husband. It made her more empathetic towards others. It made her desperate enough to take crazy big risks to go after four orphans in Africa. But I believe she'd say most importantly, it made her long to see her Father more clearly. She writes, "I had a lot of ideas about God that weren't actually God's ideas about God… I saw more clearly the disconnection between who I said God is and who I believed Him to be." Eventually she sees that the presence of infertility is what reconciled her, brought her to her knees at the feet of the One who could change it all, and not the lap of Santa. But it was a process. A whole decade in the making. She ultimately decides that "God allowed [infertility]. Maybe even invited it" and that He did so because He could see the finished product that she'd become.

I've wrestled with some of these thoughts before. I wrote a post awhile ago where I struggled to find the reason for the presence of infertility in my life. Later, I wrote a post where I tired to wrestle with the idea of giving thanks for infertility, even if it is the ultimate weed in my life. I feel like I'm on the cusp of coming full circle. The reason for infertility isn't what is important because the answer won't change much of anything. And offering thanks is well and good, but there is more.

I've allowed infertility, my barrenness to become the lens by which I view the world. Or more accurately, to color the lens I use to view the world. When I view my life, and the lives of those around me I see evidence of being overlooked by God. You can see where Sara's question comes in. The question isn't "is God good?" but rather the question is "is God good to me?" Is God good? Absolutely. Is God good to me? Maybe. I hope so. Let's wait and see. If asked, I wouldn't have said any of that, but that's what would have rolled through the dusty, darkness of my mind where tumbleweeds blow from one corner to the next. But now, as I continue to wrestle, as I continue to stretch I'm coming to a slightly different idea. Maybe God's goodness isn't measured simply in giving good gifts, which He does, but rather in allowing us to come to a place where we desire Him more than His gifts. Maybe He allows it, even invites it so that I'll eventually come to a place where I can write, "I wanted Him. Whether He came and lifted my circumstances, or He just came."

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I'm assuming you were hoping for an update out of all of that. I don't know much. We had our interview last night. It was awkward, and touching, and stressful, and hard. And it made me admire and like this woman 10,000 times more than before. This situation feels so right to me for so many reasons, but I have no inkling if the expectant mom is feeling the same. We know now that we went second; the other couple had their interview yesterday morning. I also know that my consultant really wanted us to go first because, in her words, "the first couple almost always gets chosen." I also know that the two women from the agency that were on both phone calls are split in their opinion as to who she will choose. This could go either way. We don't feel settled, or secure, or confident in anyway. I also know that everything you wanted to say apparently comes to mind and mouth about 4:30am after the phone call. We are hopeful that we will have an answer within the next few days… as always, the waiting is the hardest part.

We are desperately hoping that this little boy is our bring home baby… but if not He is still good.