{"id":72,"date":"2010-07-15T16:12:50","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T21:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ipsinaction.com\/ips\/?p=72"},"modified":"2024-06-20T15:42:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T15:42:06","slug":"surrendering-mystery-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/?p=72","title":{"rendered":"Surrendering to the Mystery, Who is God"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Kristen M.<\/em><\/p>\n

I thought I had my life all figured out.\u00a0 My husband and I were married in 2000, and two years later we were blessed with the birth of our daughter.\u00a0 In 2004, God gave us our son.\u00a0 We were filled with love, joy, and gratitude.\u00a0 Since my husband and I are both the oldest of four children, we had always planned on having a six-person family.\u00a0 At the beginning of 2006, we were ready to have another baby \u2013 right on our schedule.\u00a0 Unfortunately, things didn\u2019t turn out as we had planned.<\/p>\n

That first year was an emotional rollercoaster.\u00a0 Each month I prayed fervently that I would become pregnant, and each month I was disappointed.\u00a0 I went to daily Mass, prayed the rosary, did novenas, and nothing happened.\u00a0 Our regular doctors failed to find anything \u201cwrong.\u201d\u00a0 I took my charts to a Natural Family Planning consultant, who determined that something was wrong, but could only refer me to the head of the Creighton Method who was out at the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha.\u00a0 There was no way that we would be able to afford that, so we just kept counting on God.\u00a0 The stress on our marriage had become difficult to handle.\u00a0 While I was extremely happy with my two wonderful children, I still yearned to have more.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t make sense.\u00a0 This secondary infertility was becoming a monster, and I really wanted to give it up.\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t that easy.<\/p>\n

In January 2007, we decided that we were going to see a fertility doctor, and if he wasn\u2019t able to assist us, we would just give up the dream.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t want to do any artificial means because we already had two healthy children and we felt that if God wanted us to have more, we would.\u00a0 He was neither able to help us nor provide a diagnosis.\u00a0 Even though I was \u201csupposed to\u201d stop being obsessed with having another baby, I couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 When reading an article in St. Anthony\u2019s Messenger <\/em>one day, I discovered a shrine for infertile couples, Our Lady of La Leche\/Mission Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine Florida.\u00a0 I had been so close to God during this experience and found God in so many ways with the help of my spiritual director, that I was sure that God would hear my plea at our family pilgrimage.\u00a0 In the midst of planning our trip, I came across a Natural Family Planning doctor in Hobart, Indiana.\u00a0 After running a series of tests, he recommended some medication that I was to begin taking after the trip.<\/p>\n

The shrine was amazing!\u00a0 My husband and I both were overwhelmed with the presence of God as we prayed together, alone, and with the kids.\u00a0 What I came away with was something to the effect of John 15:5.\u00a0 \u201cI am the vine, you are the branches.\u00a0 Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.\u201d\u00a0 When I was there, I first petitioned for a friend of mine who had been trying to conceive for almost seven years and a cousin of mine who has epilepsy and had lost two children.\u00a0 Neither of them had any children, and their situations were far more significant than mine.<\/p>\n

Two months later, both of them were pregnant!\u00a0 My friend was expecting twins after having failed twice at in-vitro fertilization!\u00a0 I was in awe.\u00a0 God certainly heard my prayer.\u00a0 But what about me?\u00a0 I took my medication and was sure that it was my turn.\u00a0 I had God figured out.\u00a0 But lo and behold, I was wrong again.\u00a0 The medicine caused some unpleasant side effects, so after trying it for three months we vowed to abandon the desire to become pregnant.<\/p>\n

In spring 2008, prompted by the content in my spirituality course, I decided that God was calling me to surrender.\u00a0 For over two years, I felt like I had been fighting a losing battle, yet God was with me the entire time.\u00a0 Friend after friend had become pregnant while I waited.\u00a0 I was bothered by something beyond my control.\u00a0 I believed that God knows what is best for me, but I knew what I wanted.\u00a0 I kept praying that I would do God\u2019s will, but simultaneously I prayed for my will to be done.<\/p>\n

The past two and one-half years have been easier, even though I\u2019ve still had a few ups and downs.\u00a0 People ask questions and make comments.\u00a0 The other four people that I know that had also experienced secondary infertility have all either had babies or are pregnant now, but I am certain that I am closer to God than I would have been if this experience had not been a part of my life.\u00a0 In my struggles, I have felt the embrace of a God who both immanently cried with me in my anguish and transcendently knows what is best for me.<\/p>\n

Over the course of these four and one-half years, I have been \u201cparabled.\u201d\u00a0 When I read Dr. Ludwig\u2019s essay, I was almost brought to tears because his words so accurately detailed my experience.\u00a0 In describing the relationship of a parable to the kingdom of God, he asserts:<\/p>\n

God\u2019s reign is truly God\u2019s; we cannot initiate it or bring it to fulfillment, only God can do that.\u2026 We have to surrender our reign if we are to \u201creign\u201d with God in God\u2019s reign.\u00a0 I come to know God in the recognition that I am not God.\u00a0 When I see that truly I am not in charge, I can begin to glimpse that God, in all of God\u2019s mysterious otherness, is. (6)<\/p>\n

God completely reversed my expectations.\u00a0 God challenged my security and my meaning of faith and what I believe about God.\u00a0 I thought I had control over my life.\u00a0 Everyone else seemed to be in control of whether or not they would conceive a child.\u00a0 Why couldn\u2019t I?\u00a0 I am a \u201cgood girl.\u201d\u00a0 I am a practicing Catholic who strives to live out my faith daily.\u00a0 Is faith more than what I had thought it to be?\u00a0 In Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God<\/em>, Elizabeth Johnson beautifully illuminates the faith that I am beginning to discover through my parable experience:<\/p>\n

We are called into the immediacy of God\u2019s own self.\u00a0 If we accept the silent immensity that surrounds us as something infinitely distant and yet ineffably near; if we receive it as a sheltering nearness and tender love that does not make any reservations; and if in this embrace we have the courage to accept our own life in all its concreteness and yearning, which is possible only by grace, then we have the mystical experience of faith.\u00a0 Accepting our life means letting ourselves fall into this unfathomable mystery at the heart of our existence in an act of loving self-surrender. (44-45)<\/p>\n

I have realized that I am radically dependent upon God.\u00a0 I am not God.\u00a0 I cannot put God in a box or figure out what God is going to do in my life.\u00a0 All I know is that God is with me and loves me.\u00a0 Through this experience, I feel that God is calling me to make room for God, who is Mystery.\u00a0 God is challenging me to recognize God in ways that I had not expected and to trust that God has a plan that is good for me.\u00a0 I am learning to live in the tension that God answers prayers but not necessarily in the way that we want them answered.\u00a0 In coming to know God better (I will never completely know God), I come to know who I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Kristen M. I thought I had my life all figured out.\u00a0 My husband and I were married in 2000, and two years later we were blessed with the birth of our daughter.\u00a0 In 2004, God gave us our son.\u00a0 We were filled with love, joy, and gratitude.\u00a0 Since my husband and I are both read more <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4623,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/4623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}