Toward Healing

Two weeks ago my dad and I drove down to Kentucky to see my uncle get his doctorate in biblical studies. My uncle, who is my dad’s younger brother, is a lot like my dad (wonderful!) and his wife is the sweetest southern lady you will ever meet. They’re strong Christians, and have been missionaries to Ecuador for most of the past fifteen years. Soon after we started trying to conceive, we asked them to pray for us, and I’m sure they have been doing so faithfully ever since.

I pray constantly for a child, but unless it’s only Michael and me praying, I’m unable to say that prayer out loud. My family says Evening Prayer together every day, and there’s a section for general intercessions. When I’m praying with them and we get to that section, I can feel the most fervent of my petitions swelling up in my throat, but it always chokes me, and I end up swallowing tears while praying quickly for an increase in vocations or for my grandmother’s health. I know that my family loves me unbelievably, but that part of me that has been broken by infertility is so tender that I cannot bear to show it even to them.

But when we were in Kentucky my dad and I said Evening Prayer with my aunt and uncle and cousin. And during the general intercessions my aunt prayed, in her soft accent with her hand resting gently on me, that Michael and I would conceive a child. I had my head bowed and at her words I buried it in my hands, because I could not stop the tears from coming. My uncle came over and put his hands on my shoulders, and in the silence of that moment I could feel their love, a tiny piece of Christ’s love brought to me in that moment, and suddenly I didn’t need to hide any more. I lifted my tear-stained face and bared my grief, and that tender spot inside me healed just a little.

After formal Evening Prayer, my aunt and uncle and my dad prayed a prayer of healing for me, with their hands on my head and my shoulders, holding my hands, holding me. I cried until I was aching, but it was the kind of crying that makes you feel more whole after you’ve done it. When they were done praying I felt weak, but peaceful – and sure for the first time that I will eventually be healed.

In the days since then, I’ve been thinking about what healing means, and I feel certain that healing from infertility is much more than simply becoming a parent when you were once childless. Were I to get pregnant tomorrow, I would be thrilled, but I think I would still feel broken. The hurt of this time, which has changed me so essentially, could not just disappear.

But if by grace I can come to terms with that hurt, if I can realize that I am precious in spite of my infertility, if I can accept God’s love and love myself as easily as I would were I not infertile, then, perhaps, I will be healed.

I know instinctively that I am made to give love in a certain way, and being prevented from giving that love by no choice of my own, I feel less a woman and less a person. Somehow, infertility has become my fault, though I know that I have not chosen it, though every part of me cries out against it. I hate the infertility and so I hate a part of myself.

I know this is not right. I know it with my mind. But my heart and my soul do not affirm it, and until they do, I will not be healed even though I bear ten children. On the other hand, maybe I could be healed even if I do not bear children. And then, perhaps, I will be able to bring someone else’s children into my home and raise them as my own – and become able to think of them, as so many mothers have become able, not as someone else’s children but as my own.

Each of us has a void which only Love Himself can fill. Infertility has thrown my void into stark relief, has shown me how I was heedlessly looking for children to fill it. But every other love, even the singular love of a parent for a child, is merely a quiet, rough echo of the love of God. If I do not affirm that, I will always be broken.

When my family was getting ready to pray for me and I could not stop crying, I apologized, “I can’t keep it together.”

My dad held my hand and said, “Honey, you don’t have to. God will.”

Pray that I shall be able to let Him.

Comments

[Sarah]

I'll pray for you if you'll pray for me, for approximately the same sort of healing. I was thinking along similar lines myself recently, that unless I really learn to let go and trust God and rely on His love, then even if I get everything I desire I'll still be worried, anxious, on the lookout for something to go wrong.

This trust won't stop me from praying for a child (for both of us, and for all those we know who desire children), but hopefully it will allow me to accept whatever His will is with (dare I say it?) joy.

[Dooneybug]

That was very beautiful Elizabeth. Even though I haven't found my path down the religious road, I still pray and I will do so for you and all those who hope for a child.

[Ellen]

Wow...just, wow. You have expressed so beautifully the lessons that we all need to learn, whatever the cause of our brokenness may be. It is SO HARD to know how to go from head-knowledge to feeling something to be true. I pray that God will be with you on your journey towards healing, whatever happens with your dreams for children.

[Alexandra]

I agree altogether with what Ellen said. You are in my prayers.

[Katie]

Thank you for putting so many of my feelings into words. I'm glad you were shown a Divine moment like that.

[unexplained]

I had a similar experience... right before Christmas my parish had a Mass of Healing. I was actually on the schedule to be the cantor, but when I learned what it was, I asked our music minister to find someone else. And since I'd done that, I of course HAD to go (since now my music minister knew about it, as did the DRE, and of course my priest) - I really didn't want to, I have SUCH a hard time praying about this. Anyway I went and I just cried and cried and cried. And there are people there who have had their children die of horrible diseases, who are quietly praying, and I'm just a heap of tears... It's funny how I'm able to function and am even beginning to let go of my "period pity party" behaviors (mainly overeating), but the moment someone I love acknowledges the pain, I just lose it. Maybe a healing prayer like that would help...

[Amy]

Elizabeth, your post was beautiful. It brought tears to my eyes. I'll keep praying.

[Jordana]

Hi, I'm delurking. :)

Your post today reminds me very much of my own experience waiting for a husband . . . I was single past the time most of my friends had gotten married, and desperately wanted to get married myself (a state not helped by the numbers of people at ALL THOSE WEDDINGS who would ask me, "So, when will it be YOUR turn?" Kindly meant, I'm sure.) Finally, I reached a place of surrender to God's will which is hard to describe but basically involved me saying, Not my will but Thine be done. (God revealed my husband and me to each other within months, if not weeks, of that.)

Not that surrender and healing are a means to an end . . . If one were to say, "OK, OK, I surrender; now, where's my husband/baby/perfect job/etc.," the surrender would not be complete. And surrender is good in itself. It's the heart-healing we need, the increased closeness to God, more than that thing we want so much. As you say, going into a marriage still bitter about the years of singleness, or having a baby while still angry about the years of infertility, means that there is a wedge between us and God even in the moments of His gift-giving.

[Becki]

Oh, sweetie. I just wept for you as I read this. I really believe that God will make complete your efforts to trust him, and will "keep you together" when you yourself can't. He reads the prayer in every tear that rolls down your face, even when you can't form the words. I don't know why you're being put to this trial, and I hope it's God's will that it ends happily and soon. You are in my prayers every single day.

[Sonetka]

I wish I could say something intelligent about this, but I can't, except to say that I'm glad you were able to lift your head up; it may not seem like much to someone on the outside, but really it is enormously important...

Praying for you.

[Katie]

Beautifully written. You remain in my prayers.

[Amanda]

That was beautiful. I'm so sorry this is happening to you. I just know you're going to be a wonderful mother - whenever it happens.

[Kris]

You're in my prayers, too, Elizabeth. What a beautiful, eloquent post. You have such strong family support.

[Shelly]

Simply beautiful. I pray for you as well since I know exactly what you mean since I have come there myself. God bless you.

[Aitch]

Oh sweetie, this made me cry too.

[jen]

Oh hon, I am hurting so much for you, and praying for you to get to that place of healing. I remember when we were struggling with infertility, at first I would pray to get pregnant. But after time my prayers changed and I prayed instead to be a mother, knowing that I would not have this desire if it weren't in God's plan somehow for me to have a child. And now that we have Li, I can see how perfectly it worked out. I couldn't see it then, or for a long time after, but fact is, Li would have been conceived about the time our first (and only) invasive fertility procedure failed.

I know that doesn't help you now, but I wanted to put it out there for you. And I'm going to email you with my phone # so we can plan a time to meet up.