Wrestling

I've been out in the world this morning, I needed a few bits and bobs and I'm feeling strong today so I went for it.  I was surprisingly OK, but it's still exhausting so when I got home I allowed myself a lounge on the bed with my cat and a cuppa and a scroll of social media.   My news feed will be so different to yours. Amongst posts from widow groups and adverts for memorial jewellery pops us an article from Winston's WIsh, about supporting grieving children through the holidays.  Not right now I think, and scroll on. The very next thing? An article from still standing magazine about remembering your baby during the holidays.  Time to put the phone down. FFS. This is my life.  How did I get here?

You'll probably remember that I wrestled with God for a very long time after Bertie died. It took me years to reconcile my faith in a good God with the loss of an innocent child.  Eventually I got to a place of acceptance that I won't get that answer in life, and learned to live with the paradox. You may be surprised to learn that this time I'm not wrestling. Not in the same way anyway.   We have the gift of free will. Mark was an adult, he made his choice. It wasn't God who took him from me, he decided to leave.  God knew he was going to, as my favorite psalm (139) tells us "all the days of our lives are known before one of them comes to be", but it was his choice to do this.  What God did was make sure that Oliver and I are surrounded by people we can lean on, to help pull us through the treacle.  People with similar personal experiences, people with professional experiences, and people who have no experience at all but just want to love and help us in any way they can. 

What I am struggling with, what I am asking God about, is why did He answer my prayer about the opportunity to have another child in the way He did?  We were doing IVF.  I'd wanted another baby (probably more than Mark did if I'm honest about it) for a long time, since Oliver was 2.  We couldn't afford IVF and I wasn't prepared emotionally to put us through it again anyway.  Around 18months ago I had a change of heart. I was getting older and pregnancy wasn't happening, so we discussed the IVF option again. I was prepared to try it if we could find a way to pay for it and Mark just wanted me to be happy.  So, I prayed a hedge-your-bets prayer asking God to either make a way...or else help me to accept being a family of 3.  (Mark was never up for adopting and I was concerned about the dynamics of mixing a biological child with an adopted one, so we discounted that option). Not long after I began praying that prayer, Mark got a substantial pay rise. Right, we said, that's our answer.   We had a fantastic result and long story short I have 12 embryos frozen.   We had agreed to have 6 tries, we got as far as three. What I am wrestling with is why did God make a way for us to do the IVF, knowing that Mark was going to leave me? Why let us wrack up this debt, put me through the physical discomfort and the mental anguish of the whole thing. Why give me such an amazing result......when it was never going to result in a baby?  I can't do it alone;  I just don't understand it. 

I lay in bed a few nights ago, unable to sleep as usual and talked it out with God. I asked Him all this and then said "right, I'm going to make an effort to listen to Your response. I know I'm shockingly bad at doing that and so easily distracted but I'm really going to try and listen".  To my surprise, He spoke.  He gave me an image of the Holy Spirit surrounding me in golden light, warming me (I felt physically warm). He told me He loves me, is pleased with me, and is upholding me.  He is surrounding Oliver and I with His presence and we are going to be OK. 

Wow.

Now that was amazing.  I mean, it was a lot like the non-answer Job got.  Don't ask Me why, just know that I'm here and in control. Frustrating.  But as I said, I did learn that lesson once before and I guess I needed a reminder.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Checking in with myself

 My counsellor is on holiday this week and I'm away next week, so I'll be missing 3 sessions. She advised me to take some time to check in with myself and see how I am doing, as I usually would with her.  Because I find that if i just think it, the thoughts stay in my head, I'll write them down here.  That approach forces me to be honest with the people who care enough to read this, as if you ask me directly I am likely to say "I'm OK".  It has been an up and down couple of weeks. Well, when isn't it? Life has been ticking along as it does, we are mostly into our groove now, Oliver and I.  It's the school holidays and we are enjoying spending time together.   Considering in the early weeks the weekends felt long and daunting, this is great news.  We have had a couple of events that hilighted Mark's absence. Our 15th wedding anniversary passed by quietly, because I made sure it did. I took Oliver out for the day and kept busy. I braced myself for a...
Read more

What would I say to her?

A Facebook memory came up today, a picture of me at Christmas 14 years ago.  My first thought - wow she looks young was s quickly followed by the realisation that the picture pre dates the toughest decade of my life.  ' She ' isn't ' me '. She is untouched by grief and loss. She hasn't felt betrayal or abandonment. She is a newly wed with no idea that she will bury her baby and her husband before middle age.   I wondered what I would say to her if I could go back and visit her?  Would I tell her of the unspeakable grief she had ahead of her? No.  I would let her keep her innocence as long as she could.   I think I would tell her to believe in herself more because she is a warrior.  That life is short so seize every opportunity.  To make plans but hold them lightly because life so rarely goes to plan.  Talk to God more, lean on Him because He knows she's really going to need Him. To care less about what other people think of her. B...
Read more

On identity and belonging

 I've been feeling a little unsettled. Adrift. Unanchored? A planner without a plan....well, I have a loose one.  This week I left work in the NHS after 15 years, 14 of them at the same trust.  The same amount of time I was married.  As I removed my name plate from my clinic room door for the last time, I sat and looked at it for a while thinking about the fact that I don't identify as Mrs Townend any more.  I will never again say the words "Hello I'm Sarah Townend, one of the lead optometrists here"....and I feel relief about that, because that isn't who I am.  But who am I then? I don't feel I belong with the Townends. I don't feel a part of that family now. When we visit them I don't feel relaxed like I'm with family, I feel reserved and closed off,  I'm wearing a mask for them.  I don't feel like a Mrs, because I'm not a wife.   That may surprise some, I know a lot of widows still consider themselves married to their late spouse...
Read more