If you are in the depths of grief, you may be experiencing one of it's stages, anger. I've been there, I feel you. It's not something spiritual communities talk about often, so I thought I would share a little of my own journey through this stage in my grief and relationship with God.
The Anger Stage
It was four years into our attempts to be parents and I was stuck between whether I was supposed to be 'facing facts' or 'holding on to hope'. The limbo was tiresome, and as I grew tired of being tired of everything, resentment began to set in.
I was desperately searching the world (worldwide web that is) for other women who might have some insight, finding nothing. Until I did. When I started following the blog of another infertility journey, I couldn't believe it when her words jumped right off the screen and landed deep within my heart. She shared my exact predicament, believing God can do miracles but beginning to struggle to believe He will do one for us. Her entire post was a 'me too!' moment, and I finally didn't feel so alone. But, then another feeling crept in.
Doubt in God.
It took me quite a long time to realize what I was experiencing through infertility was grief. I had moved through some of the stages already, but once I actually understood there may be no children after all these losses, the anger stage came quickly and easily. Especially with unexplained infertility, searching for answers where there were none. Searching for something to blame where no blame was found. Hope fading with every closed door, along with all sense of control. Then, suddenly you realize, God has all control, and instantly there is a place to lay the blame again.
This wasn’t an immediate conclusion for me, but that resentment was something that had been seeping in through the cracks in my heart for awhile now, and they were widened with every heartbreak. Four years in, yet another late period heartbreak, the chasms in my heart broke wide open. And I got angry. Fed up, give up, angry. The day I waved the white flag on trying to conceive was the day I realized that I did not trust God. My finger was adamantly pointed at Him.
A Strange Struggle
My faith in God at this time still had a certain status quo, strangely enough. I didn’t doubt that God was good, I only doubted He planned for my life to be good. I didn’t doubt God could do miracles, I just doubted He would bless me with one. I didn’t doubt God loved me, I simply doubted God liked me - as much as others who got their heart's desires.
At first I asked 'why me', or rather 'why not me'? Why don't I get to be a mother when so many others who are not fit for the job get to have it. Even in my own extended family, girls were having children before they were women. And the women in my family who had trouble having children, God had found a way to give them their family. Why not me!
But I didn't get any answers.
So I put distance between me and God. My anger came out in the silent treatment. I had nothing left to say. My resentment looked like not listening for His voice. There was nothing I wanted to hear except that I would become a mother. I am not the scream and stomp kind of angry woman, but believe me, there was rage behind my avoidance of God.
I felt God trying to reach out to comfort me but I just couldn’t accept it. He pursued me, determined to show me He was grieving with me. I could feel Him persisting, I could feel He wanted to love on me so He could heal my hurts. I just couldn't let myself believe it though, I was just far too hurt. The lyrics or verses that once comforted me, I just wouldn't let them permeate my hard heart. The glimpses of hopeful imagery, I quickly dismissed. Then, one day, I dared pray again and I saw a picture of me in the dark pit I knew I was in, but then the picture started zooming out, and I could begin to see some formations of the pit, some creases started showing. The image was growing gradually brighter and bigger until I finally saw myself in the crook of God's elbow as He cradled me. I wept. The walls around my heart crumbled.
Rebuilding Trust
It wasn't immediately easy to talk to God again, but I gradually began to try the things that brought me closer to Him before. This time I was open to the answers God might have for me, even if they weren't what I wanted to hear. It was in these conversations a whole new side to God was revealed to me, and as I understood Him better I also understood more about how I was created and why. It is a unique vantage point when you can discover how entirely significant you are to the Creator of everything, at the same time realizing He loves everyone this much. And therefore, He is working for all our good throughout His plans. It wasn't just about me.
Yet, it still was very much about the hope God wanted to give me for my personal future. The time had come to realize that the plan I was designed for was always in play. His plans for me would be the same with or without me giving birth. My purpose is my purpose and that would never change.
I finally understood I had put God in a box. I had put God in a box that completely aligned with my perspective and desires. A box that defined love as getting my dreams fulfilled. And this understanding of His love diminished my ability to receive the real thing. It deceived me into believing that because I wasn’t getting what I wanted, God’s promises didn’t apply to me. Thankfully, God doesn’t stop loving or providing just because I don’t believe it, and that He pursued me until I discovered His real love again.
Continuing to choose to trust God's plans over my own will not be without its challenges, but life in hindsight makes me grateful that I never truly walked away from His love. Infertility has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever walked through, but it would have been so much harder if I had stayed ‘living by sight’ rather than ‘living by faith’. Living by faith allowed me to be me because it allowed God to be God. Trusting God allows Him to work all things for my good, allowing me to live my best life, because, after all it is I who is in a box, with limits on my understanding and reach and power, not God.
Save to Pinterest to bookmark this post for future reading.
Comments
Post a Comment