The question of GOD

Since I am on a roll, I might as well tackle this one.  Before infertility hit me, I had a very calm, peaceful and largely unexamined relationship with God.  God was good.  He helped me go through tough times.  He looked after my mother when she was sick.  He took my grandmother to him when she died.  He helped me succeed professionally.  He put MrH and I together on this planet so that, despite anyone's objections, we might love and support each other and together pray to Him in adoration.   God was fair and what He did made sense.  I could comprehend God.  I could predict what God would do.

Not so much after Adrian died.  Even less with each subsequent miscarriage.  And tonight, battling some form of post op cellulitis (along the lines of flesh eating disease), I completely agree with MrH that WE DON'T GET IT.  God has become more and more incomprehensible as each event passed.  What on Earth are you thinking, oh Lord?  Sometimes I wonder if You are thinking at all.  Sometimes I am so angry with You that I would like to shake You a little.  Sometimes, when people say "I'll pray for you" I want to say NO, STOP, please don't attract God's attention to me, as He might notice that I am trying something and give me another little trial to go through.  Please, give me a break, don't pray for me and maybe He'll leave me alone.

And then, in some very special moments, I get this sudden different point of view, like another dimension has opened up for me.  What if these mini and maxi disasters that keep happening are not God's doing at all, but rather a consequence of being human and imperfect, of being susceptible to bad luck and disease?  What if God simply cannot stop these losses, for reasons that I cannot understand?  What if God is also wishing that things were different?  What if he would like MrH and I to have a child, and he is cheering alongside us, hoping that we won't give up?

What if God's role is not directive, but rather supportive?  We can go ahead with living our lives, and we can choose our path, all the while choosing as well to let God in or not.  Our faith can then give us a little twist to the chosen path, but largely cannot change it all that much.  What our faith can do, however, is to open our hearts to a different kind of learning.  Like the kind of learning I am going through.

When my baby was stillborn, I knew that God did not want that to happen.  I simply knew it in my heart.  The God that I had been in a relationship for 30 years would not allow a little baby to die before even being alive.  The God that I knew was very sad indeed for me and my little baby.

Somehow, at times, I forgot this insight, and started blaming Him as a convenient target.  And even now, for brief moments, I can get angry with Him.  What does He do?  he gives me a beautiful sunset, and Keflex in megadoses, and love from those around me.  God is not the guilty one.  He is the One Who keeps me going.  He is the One that fills other people's hearts with love so that we might get support and community.  As life goes on, I hope this awareness of God will prevail in my mind, because it seems to make the most sense.

Sorry about the rambling.  I will tackle this one again later, when my mind is sharper.  In the meantime I have found a great book, highly recommended for anyone who is struggling with loss and faith (plus loss of faith I guess), it is called "When bad things happen to good people."  'cause they do.  And somehow we have to navigate through them, all the while keeping our hearts open to God, or else drying up.