Through this first stage of wrestling and through reading the books, "A Grace Disguised" by Jerry Sittser and "When God Sees Your Tears" by Cindi McMenamin, my view of God's character began to change. I have always known that God is a loving God but I think this concept has had a hard time getting from my head to my heart. The struggle with infertility made me realize that my view of God historically has been more on the holy, mighty, disciplinary side of the spectrum than the relational, loving, gracious side of the spectrum. Of course He is all of those things but my initial reaction to my infertility was that He was doing this because I deserved it and was doing it because I didn't have enough faith in Him. Now, I do deserve it. I deserve death. But that's where grace comes in and I'm learning more about what grace really means. Through reading the books, I'm coming to realize more that God isn't out to get me to teach me a lesson but that I need to trust in his sovereignty and his will. I had moments when I thought God didn't care and envisioned him as a stern father looking down, waiting for me to get it together before He could bless me. But that's not it either. He has blessed me, just not in the way of children. He's given me physical blessings such family, friends, food, car, house, and the list could go on and on. He's also given spiritual blessings such as peace and strength for each day. I don't have the time today to go through the various lessons I learned and conclusions I made through this stage of wrestling but I can tell you that I chose to follow Him through the infertility instead of turning my back on Him and I trust in my heart that He has a plan.
That being said, it's hard to always have that trust and I feel like I am in another phase of wrestling. I'm reading a book on the sovereignty of God and wrestling with some of the principles in there. If God's will is sovereign and no one can change His will, then why do we pray? Do our prayers really make a difference if God already has made up His mind about something? Is it worth even trying to pray for a child of my own or is it all in vain? Why do we pray for healing if God's will isn't to heal? Of course we don't know the will of God but is it really our prayers that make the difference?
It's been good for me to ask these questions. Someone recently told me that when we are wrestling with God, we are the closest we can get to Him. I think sometimes we get nervous with wrestling and questioning our faith. In my experience, it's making my faith stronger. Through this experience, I learned that my faith was weak and it's felt a little like the man who built his house on sand. One thing goes wrong and the foundation crumbles. Through questioning and wrestling, I'm building the house back up with Christ as my foundation.
I'm learning to not just ask the questions but to truly wrestle with it and challenge it. That's where I feel the faith grows. Because if I can struggle through these tough questions and get to a place where I don't necessarily have the answer but can trust God through it all, hopefully my foundation will be stronger once the next storm comes around. I'm still learning to do this though. It's easy for me to ask all the questions, get frustrated, and just try to forget about it all instead of reading the Bible and praying through the questions. Lately I've found it easier to stop asking God for a child because it's too painful to hear "No" over and over again. I pray about this too. I think God wants me to tell Him that it's getting hard to ask and to give me wisdom and guidance for what to ask.
I am comforted that there are people in the Bible that I can relate to. The Bible tells us that Jacob wrestled with God. In this case, he was physically wrestling with God but based on what I know about the story, it was spiritual just as much as physical. Jacob wrestled all night and said to the man, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." Jacob's persistence was rewarded and he was blessed.
This is a lesson for me to not give up wrestling and not give up asking because I know that God hears me and will bless me. One night I was really wrestling with whether my prayers for a child make any difference and whether I should keep praying for one. I prayed that God would show me whether my requests make a difference or not. After praying, I read this paragraph from the book I'm reading about God's sovereignty: (forgive me, it's long).
"Trusting God in the midst of our pain and heartache means that we accept it from Him. There is a vast difference between acceptance and either resignation or submission. We can resign ourselves to a difficult situation, simply because we see no other alternative. Many people do that all the time. Or we can submit to the sovereignty of God in our circumstances with a certain amount of reluctance. But to truly accept our pain and heartache has the connotation of willingness. An attitude of acceptance says that we trust God, that He loves us and knows what is best for us.
Acceptance does not mean that we do not pray for physical healing, or for the conception and birth of a little one to our marriage. We should indeed pray for those things, but we should pray in a trusting way. We should realize that, though God can do all things, for infinitely wise and loving reasons, He may not do that which we pray that He will do. How do we know how long to pray? As along as we can pray trustingly, with an attitude of acceptance of His will, we should pray as long as the desire remains." (Jerry Bridges,"Trusting God Even When Life Hurts")
