Bittersweet Feast

Today is the prelude of joy for the universe!
Let us anticipate the feast and celebrate with 
exultation:
Gabriel is on his way to announce the glad 
tidings 
to the Virgin;
He is ready to cry out in fear and wonder:
Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with You!


I have to say that The Feast of the Annunciation is a little bittersweet for me. I love the miracle of human reproduction. It is fascinating and awe-inspiring. What makes it even more so is this very feast. God The Word chose this process to redeem his race of Image Bearers. Whenever a woman has a child she is taking part in that same process. So I find myself so excited to celebrate this feast for the very first time tonight. There is the sweet.
As I meditate on The Theotokos carrying not only Life but the Light of Light, True God of True God, the One who was in the beginning, I can't help but wonder what it was like. Women who have carried children past the first few days or weeks must have a taste of her wonder. And a very literal  bitterness enters here. I am jealous. I want to understand the Incarnation and the Theotokos in the way that any woman who has given birth can. What makes it all the more painful is that many women, especially my Protestant dear ones, don't care. Today is just Friday. They have the opportunity to stand in front of Christ and His Mother and have just a glimpse of one of the most important moments in human history, and it is just Friday.
It is a similar feeling to when I read Facebook statuses about how exhausting children are and how parents wish that kids would just nap, or that they could go out on a date without having to find a babysitter. Now I don't think these aren't real frustrations and legitimate emotions. I don't think that these friends don't love their children with all their hearts. I don't even think they should keep their frustrations to themselves. But, it stings a little. I want to respond "I would give my life and everything I have for a sleepless night with a colicky infant rather than with my own depression."
So as people's Facebook statuses start to pop up with everyones Friday night plans, and laments of lost pre-baby weekends I'm going to be a little bitter. Because not only don't I have the baby, but tonight I will go to church for the feast and not have the experience of knowing that feeling of life inside of me to deepen my worship.
I think as long as I suffer from infertility this will be the hardest day of the Church Year for me.

Yes, I am okay, or at least I will be....

I have talked about our struggle with infertility and the sadness surrounding it. I feel inclined to just be quiet about all of this, but it didn't feel quite right.
On Father's Day I gave Brian a positive pregnancy test. He was thrilled, I was reserved. On Tuesday I thought I was going to puke every time I smelled even the hint of cigarette smoke. On Wednesday I spit out steak and all I wanted was raw red peppers. I let myself get excited.
After the last chemical pregnancy we knew that I would not have any miscarriage symptoms, so we decided we'd take a test every week until we got a heartbeat on an Ultrasound. On Monday the test came back negative. We were shocked. I had absolutely zero desire for meat or cigarettes, that constitutes brain tumor level personality change. Sure I had stopped smoking, but not because I wanted to!
Its easier and harder this time around. Its easier because it was familiar territory. It was easier because I knew it might be coming. It was harder because I have the old pain and the new pain all rolled together into one big mass in my chest.
I often find the idea of an entirely sovereign deity comforting. Basically, there is nothing I can screw up, no matter what I do the train stays on the track. My fallibility is a tool in his hands, not a counterforce. I have found no comfort in it this time. It feels like the plan is to hurt me. What glory could this possibly bring to God? I've been praying for a child, and everyone knows I've been praying for a child, so wouldn't he be glorified through me keeping a baby? So what good came from this? The only things that was accomplished, that I can see, is that I am heartbroken and it has been reaffirmed that I am a screw-up. I am a screw-up at a cellular level!
Prayers are appreciated and I'm not really up to talking about it anymore than I just have.  It's a lot easier to "talk" about it this way. There is a lot of misinformation and differing opinion when it comes to fertility and women's health. I find very helpful people who want to tell me what their sister, mother, cousin, best-friend, or whoever did to get pregnant. I have not found a polite way to explain exactly why cough syrup might have helped your sister-in-law get pregnant but would not help me. I get very stressed out explaining to a woman who has gone through infertility, and subsequent treatment, and who understands the pain I'm feeling, that I am theologically opposed to reproductive technology. So for the time being, I will be fine, I just need time.


"O LORD of hosts if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid and remember me and not forget thine handmaid but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life." - Hannah's Prayer

New Words For Old Thoughts

I said something on Sunday I had never said before. It just popped out of my mouth and it was so true but I hadn't thought it through and I hadn't planned to say it. I imagine it is what happens when fictional people fall in love without knowing it and those 3 little words just fly out.

"If my children ever came home and said 'I asked Jesus into my heart today' I think I will cry," and no I didn't mean tears if joy. It sounds weird or, if you happen to be an Evangelical, disturbing. But hear me out.

I don't remember not believing in God. I don't remember not believing in Jesus. But I do remember being told I had to have a conversion. So at five I said a prayer and it was supposed to change something, which it didn't. I still wasn't really a part of the church because I wasn't allowed either sacrament at 5. So why was it necessary? I didn't believe anything the next minute I didn't believe the minute before, or even the year before. It didn't give me access to my church. I was still an outsider looking up and in.

No one would ever have a baby, give them to an orphanage and say, "When this baby decides they want to join our family we will welcome them with open arms." So why would we exclude our children from the church until they can chose it? Why leave them spiritual orphans until they can verbalize something in the language of adults? Is it because we only understand salvation in a personal context? Is it because we've lead ourselves and our children to believe that there is salvation outside of the church? Do we believe that we each need to make our own path to God? Do we leave our infants to find their own way to food? Why leave them to find their own way to God?

I want the opposite experience for my children. I want to give them to the Lord as soon as possible. I want to tell them from that day forward that I loved them enough to give me away. Like Hannah, I prayed to have them, I cherished them, and so I gave the most precious thing I had to the Lord. This is not a hypothetical dedication. This is not a promise. I want to allow them to be grafted into the Body of Christ. I want to grasp all of those promises for them. 

They will be part of the church from the beginning. They will know that those promises are for them. They will know that by no merit or action of theirs they are the next generation of the covenant. One day the time will come for them to receive the Body and Blood of Christ and they will have been in our arms at the rail every week. They will have known, from before they can remember, what it is and why we do it. Then when it is their turn they will take all of those promises onto and into themselves. 

Finally, when they are old enough to verbalize all of these things they will stand in front of the bishop and he will ask them if they believe. They will confirm and be confirmed and they will stand on their own in the Lord, independent from me and from their father. The Lord will be the same yesterday, today and tomorrow for them. Nothing will change, if we've taught them and guided them well.

No one, if I have anything to say about it, will ask them for their testimony. There will be no pressure to tell a story of a fall from grace and a rescuing hand. They will, if my prayers are answered, be one of the 99 sheep who remained safe in the pen warm from the night and protected from the wolves by their family and the faithful shepherds serving their master. And if they ever feel the need to "pray the sinner's prayer" then I will cry because I failed them as their mother and I have failed the Lord as a shepherd. 

Why My Heart Is Breaking

Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons? So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD. And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee. And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD. Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. - 1 Samuel 1:8-18

"For Hannah, having a child was the ultimate expression of her relationship with God," according to Holly Pavlov, author of Mirrors of Our Lives- Reflections of Women in Tanach. "It was as a mother, she felt, that she could serve God best. Therefore, her bitterness was a spiritual distress, an expression of spiritual loss. This prayer, then, was not merely about her own needs, but about her ability to serve God." (Found this here.)

I conceived a child a year ago. The timing is debatable and the midwives and I never bothered to nail down an exact date. Suffice it to say that it was about a year ago. I had a miscarriage, which is also nothing new. I've spent the last year trying to get it together. Trying to fix everything in my life that might have been wrong. There is a long list of things that might cause a loss as early as mine.
I cut down my caffeine intake. I don't take NSAIDs. I have been exercising (got out of it the last couple weeks, but anyway.) I have quit smoking. I don't drink often or much. I take vitamins and herbs. I am attempting to eat whole foods. Even my ridiculous dinner tonight had only 1 ingredient that was processed.
Yet, everyday coke-heads, 300 pound Jerry Springer guests, and other sundry women get pregnant. I really thought I was okay. I'm studying to be a labor doula. There was this whole part about my own issues and dealing with them. I thought that I had put it all in its proper Westminster Catachism perspective.
Then I started getting healthier. I had a period naturally for the first time in over 2 years. This meant things were suppose to be getting on track. I was thrilled to have another one. Unlike other women who are trying to have a baby I look at it as a sign that my body is doing what it is meant to do. But the second one didn't come. And then I threw up. And then the smell of the court room in Media on Monday had my so nauseated I was sweating. And then we took a test and it was negative. I was so sure this time. I've thought I might be pregnant before. But never this sure.
Yes, we can adopt. We have always planned to adopt even if we did have biological children. But, it all comes back to giving birth. I want to be a midwife. I want to be a doula. I have a passion for childbirth. My studies convinced me that birth has a distinct spiritual and theological significance. It is the reason I believe what I do about God and what it means to be a woman. Yet right now I feel very sure I am never going to experience it. I believe in predestination. I knew someone once who believed in God and predestination but believed that he wasn't chosen. Thats how I feel. I feel like I know all about this thing and how special and wonderful it can be but I will never have it.
So my heart is broken. So I am embarrassed. So I am depressed. So I don't feel a whole lot like celebrating my second wedding anniversary. So I don't feel much like doing much of anything.