There Are No Two Ways About It

Two types of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time. It's a law of physics as well as an important Spiritual reality.

I have previously alluded to some faith issues I have faced, but I have refrained from going into detail. Yesterday I had a bit of an epiphany and feel that I have finally reached a place where I can let the world know what has been going on.

When I was first diagnosed with infertility, I had a few niggling doubts about the entity I have always called "God". However, I have always believed in a loving, caring God who always wanted what was best for me, and I knew that sometimes even the faithful have doubts. In my past, when doubt has arisen, there has always also arisen a way to overcome it; some small miracle that made me believe again. Bearing that thought in mind, I paid little heed to my doubt and moved on, knowing it would subside.

When our first adoption fell through, those doubts went from niggling to screeching. The God I had always known would never allow this to happen. He would never take two amazing children from a loving, nurturing home, and return them to parents who had gone to prison for felony endangerment. That single thought was so big and so loud and so important that the day we handed those children back to their parents, I said to God, "This is my reward for a lifetime of service? This is reaping what I sowed? This is your plan for me? Well forget it. I'm done with you. I gave you your shot and all you did was mess everything up, so I'll be doing things myself from now on, thanks."

I lived in that place of bitterness and anger right up until quite recently. It caused me to do many things I never thought I would find myself doing. I looked into other religions. I doubted whether God loved me or anyone else. My husband told me I sounded like an atheist, but the reality was so much bleaker: I believed God was out there, I just didn't think He gave two shakes about what happened to me. Which expanded into wondering whether He cared abut anyone at all. And if He doesn't care, how can He be in control? And if He's not in control then everything I've ever believed was wrong.

And I did all of it alone because I was so afraid of hearing nothing but trite, well-rehearsed "Christianese" from my friends. I was even angry at people around me that I loved because they could say, "Well, trust God," and I would think, "Oh sure. Trust God. Let's all trust God. Look how well that's turned it so far."

But a few weeks ago, I decided to confide in a trusted friend who I knew had also had significant doubt in her life. Since then, she and I have begun a partnership to rediscover who God is and how I can relate to Him. It's a slow process and I'm a difficult student, but together she and I are focusing on one important and fundamental truth: God is. My plan is to rebuild the faith I once had starting from scratch. As a church-kid, this is something I never expected to have to do. Faith has always been like breathing to me. So easy. As an intellectual person, understanding it has always been a bit of a mystery, but since faith was so easy, I could always fall back on it for things I couldn't explain.

There has been, however, one aspect of faith that I have been as yet unwilling to surrender. I was willing to move forward and rediscover God, but I felt I was entitled to keep that anger about the failed adoption. That was mine, and I refused to let God take it away. I needed that anger, I believed, in case God ever let me down again. That way I would have more than one example to point to in order to prove I was right and God didn't care.

Yesterday, in the middle of folding laundry, I realized that this is not the case. I can't hate Him for taking the other two away, and love Him for bringing me the new one. I can't believe He wants the best for me, except for that one time. I can't say He's in control except for that thing that happened. I can't be angry and move on. Those two states of mind can't exist together.

I can live in this place where I am at the moment where I don't know or understand God and how I relate to Him. I can seek Him with any sort of faith, philosophy, or Spirituality I choose, but I can't hate Him and love Him at the same time. Although this is not what the Apostle Paul was talking about when he said it, it is truly being "a house divided". And as Paul said, it WILL fall.

Where am I now? A step or two closer than I was before. And there will be many times in the future when I'll have to let that anger go again (it's been such a comfortable place for me). But I am now truly stripped. I don't know who God is or what He wants from me or anyone else. And that's okay. I know eventually He'll tell me. And this time I'll be listening.

On the hillside you will be delivered
Sinner sorry and wrecked by the fall
Cleanse your heart and your soul
In the river that flows
For you and for me and for all

Infertility is Not the End

In watching the 700 Club the other day, I was outraged. Now, for those of you making the, "Uh... what?" face, relax. I don't routinely (read: ever) watch the 700 Club. I had just turned on the TV and some decent network had the misfortune of airing the lunacy to which I'm about to refer. They happened to be talking about infertility, so I stopped to listen for a moment.

So many Christian leaders (I debated putting those words in quotations and decided to give them the benefit of the doubt) act as though if you just pray hard enough, and have enough faith, God will "overcome" your infertility and you'll conceive. And if you don't, well then God has spoken: He doesn't want you to have children and that's your burden. Now you need to pray for Him to help you carry it.

And that is when I changed the channel, and came here: the only place I have to speak out, educate the public, and spread a little tolerance.

I prayed long and hard, and with many tears to conceive. I prayed in every style and fashion I could think of, to every god, goddess, icon, and idol I came across. I lit candles, I recited from books, I said rosaries and Hail Marys. I called on the elements, I opened and closed circles, I did acts of faith. I sacrificed, I bargained, I sobbed, I raged. The only things any god chose to "bless" me with were infertility, early paramenopause, and polycystic ovaries.

I refused to believe two things: 1) The lie that God did not want me to have children, and 2) the lie that the only way to have children is to conceive. My husband and I chose adoption, and God (of any kind) had nothing to do with it. We have a son because we followed a prescribed process of steps, a committee liked our profile, and a woman chose drugs over her child. And as for the notion that everyone who applies for adoption conceives, I offer the following reality check: that only happens in a whopping 5% of cases.

I'm broken, defective, a disappointment to myself and many people around me. And you would have me believe that God wants me to settle for that? Then you and I are accquainted with very different Gods.

Someone actually said to me one day: "It's great you can adopt, but it's too bad you can't get pregnant." Really? Too bad? I don't have to endure swollen feet, night sweats, heartburn, or elevated temperature. I don't have to sacrifice my body and my energy. I don't have to torture the people around me with my mood swings and unreasonable demands. I don't have to endure childbirth and all the decisions that go with it: hospital or home? hot tub or not? Lamaze or epidural? vaginal or C-section? doula? doctor? midwife? You know what? You're right! Given the choice, who wouldn't take all that on?

And bonding? Don't even get me started. My son has no bond with his birthmother. He wouldn't recognize her if she were right in front of him. He may wonder later, but the fact that she carried and delivered him means nothing. He tested positive for meth at birth, that's how much she cared. You know who he is bonded with? My husband. Myself. His grandparents. His face lights up when we get him up in the morning. He stops crying when we hold him. So don't tell me it's too bad I can't get pregnant. Our family is exactly what it was supposed to be.

And Now A Moment of Insanity

My husband and I are in the process of adopting a baby. To clarify (because it definitely is confusing), there is no baby yet. In common adoption parlance, we are "pregnant by adoption." We have been through all the preliminary steps, we've been analysed by everyone who matters including 2 social workers, first aid instructors, parenting class teachers, and 4 references we had to provide on our own. All we're doing now is waiting. And waiting... and waiting... and waiting.

However, recently we were actually matched with a little girl. We were presented to a matching committee and they chose us as a potential match for a 1-year-old girl. Her social worker called our social worker and we went to what is known as a presentation. At the presentation, we were presented with all the information available about this little girl and her biological parents. As for the little girl herself, there were very few things that concerned us. She had some developmental delays that were the result of lack of stimulation in her environment. They were all very normal things we would expect to see in a child who had been in foster care since birth.

It was her birth parents that had us concerned. Both of them were schizophrenic and were institutionalized because of it. Now, we found out that if one parent is schizophrenic, there's about a 10% chance that the child will be. If both parents are, it's about 50-50. We also found out that it's something that can show up 20-30 years down the road. So we had to think long and hard about whether or not we were equipped to deal with this sort of thing and how comfortable we were with the chances that this little girl would develop mental illness later in life.

Now, run with me for a little bit because this next part is going to sound a little crazy. I was in the shower the afternoon of our presentation and I heard a voice in my head that said, "This is not the right one."

Okay, before you judge, let me digress a bit. I'm a Christian. I have been my whole life. And when I entered my college years, I was gifted with the Gift of Prophecy. The point of this entry is not a discussion about Spiritual Gifts, but let me give you the short version. Prophesy is not divination. It is not telling the future. In magical terms, Pagans call it Sight. Some people may call it intuition. Other people call it a gut feeling. It simply means that God speaks to me a little bit more loudly than He does to others. I don't know why. The "why" is not something God has shared with me. I believe it's how God speaks to me. Sometimes it's through music, sometimes it's something I read, sometimes it's a vision, and sometimes a voice like this time. The thing they call have in common is something I call a "feel." When the message comes from God, it has a certain feel. I can tell it's Him. Usually other sources are all from myself. I have a tendency to do what my therapist called "living in my head" which means I frequently listen to my own internal monologue more than I listen to the outside world. This makes it difficult to interpret Prophecy sometimes, but it's a personality quirk, and we all have those. I frequently allow Prophecy to help me make decisions, and I hoped desperately hoped God would give me something good this time.

And He didn't disappoint. Not only did He tell me, he also told my husband. And because the voice was from God, we knew it was the right choice to say no to this little girl.

That does not mean we didn't have issues with the choice.

The first was that we never thought we'd find ourselves turning a child down. We really had hoped we would be a forever home for whatever child may come across our path.

The second was that in some small way we felt as though we were punishing this little girl for something that wasn't her fault. Jesus said the sins of the father should not be visited up on the son. Who are we to say that we don't want this child in our home because we're afraid that what happened to her parents would happen to her? Who gave us that authority?

The last was the fear that this beautiful little girl would end up being raised in foster care because no one else would be willing to take a chance on her.

And yet through all of this, we knew the best thing for her would be to put her back in the pool and allow the right family to find her. Maybe we weren't the right family, but the right one would come along.

Last week, our social worker told us the very next family to hear about her accepted her. And so the Plan goes on. I don't claim to understand it, or even my own role in it. But the Bible says that all things work together for the good of those who love Him, and here we saw it happen. She found a home, we're back on the list, and we now have the conviction that when the right comes along, we'll know. Immediately and without question.