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A story for Mother’s Day

May 8, 2016 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

Mother’s Day used to be the hardest day of the year for me – when lost in the throes of infertility. That is no longer the case. But I never want to forget. I never want to not acknowledge just how difficult today is for those without children, for those who have lost children, for those who have chosen to not have them, for those who have lost mothers (living or dead), sisters, friends, for so many women…and men. So today, this – in the hopes that it will encourage your heart, strengthen your faith, summon forth grace, and remind you that hope, yes always hope, endures.

A story in 3 parts:

The Ending:
One day, out of the blue, unexpected, unanticipated, unbelievable, I was pregnant. And again, 15 months later. Emma Joy is now 16, Abby 17. They are miracles. It is a miracle that I am a mother.

The Beginning:
I was 31 years old when I got married. Behind the power curve (in my insular opinion) where such a significant life-marker was concerned. Children were up next (and fast) on my make-up-for-lost-time agenda. There would be no leisurely year of nuptial bliss before we began the process of trying to get pregnant. The clock was ticking. There was no time to waste – or for which to wait. I was in hot pursuit.

The Middle:
After a year of trying with no success, the fertility consultations and moderate treatments began. By year two, we’d moved to more intensive, invasive testing. And with still no success or answers that satisfied, in-vitro was the next recommended attempt. Once. Twice.

Nothing.

And then I couldn’t bear any more. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of trying. I was tired of hoping. So I stopped. No more treatment. No more planning. Little-to-no conversation. Time for life to move on. It did, of course. And it didn’t.

In the nearly-three years that followed, no matter how I tried to ignore my longings, those emotions would not be aborted. No matter how I tried to put on a spiritual happy face and quote Romans 8:28 (And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love God…), I raged inside. No matter how I tried to tell myself that God had other plans for me, that my life would have other “births,” that my world would be rich in unimaginable ways, I was miserable.

But not for lack of trying to summon up any other emotion, any other perspective, any other experience. I tried to pray. I tried to be patient. I tried to let go. I tried to trust. I tried to have faith, thinking that would make sense of things, but every effort was impotent and infertile.

Oh, how I wish I could say that my (im)patient waiting, hoping, and tenacious trust resulted in a profoundly dynamic spiritual life; a seismic and never-to-be-questioned-again faith.

Even more, how I wish that I could say to others who struggle with such intolerable
heartache that “just having faith” will, indeed and ultimately, engender and enable a hope in God that comforts and sustains.

I cannot. I will not.

I grew up believing that faith was something I needed to (and could, with enough work) attain. It was a developed skill, a worthy goal, a near-requirement for the believer in God. I also grew up believing in some kind of Divine barter system: if only I could have what I wanted, what I desired, what I fervently prayed for, then I would have faith. I ask. God comes through. My faith exponentially grows.

I am still growing, but here is what I believe now:

Faith is not ours to work toward, aspire to, or command at will. It will not appear at our beck-and-call.

Faith grows in chasms of doubt. It is nurtured in the darkness of pain. It slowly, silently, almost imperceptibly multiplies in long, wide, and deep spaces of waiting, of questioning, of aching, of asking.

Faith is not a sense-making activity, quality, or attribute. It is a crazy, defiant, and nearly certifiable choice – made an infinite number of times within one day, one life, one heart. It does not come in miracles and breakthroughs, but in the pregnant spaces of life that are more-often filled with desolation than hope. Still, an occasional tinge of awareness that something is growing and will be birthed, but a complete and helpless inability to will it to arrive any sooner. It is a mysterious, un-navigable, impossible-to(pre)determine journey.

Faith is much like pregnancy: experience more than event. And faith is much like infertility: despairing, but waiting-trusting-hoping anyway.

Faith is living one day after the next. One foot in front of the other. One wish-and-a-prayer that is too-often dashed, but whispered yet again. One broken heart that somehow mends and loves again. One longing for success that decries a dwindling bank account. One more blog post when creativity wanes. One more load of laundry. One more commute. One more prayer. One more push.

Faith is not the ending of the story, nor is it the beginning. It is the way in which we be; the way in which we live in the middle.

Naturally, the gift of my two daughters – then and now – nearly takes my breath away.

Naturally, I am deeply grateful to the Divine for their presence in my life. But I have learned that the faith that spikes in such places rarely sticks. The faith that stays – and sustains – is that which is nurtured in the well-worn path of worry, the sleepless nights, the inconsolable heartache, the insatiable desires. In between the lines. In the middle.

I am aware that my story could have gone so differently. But my faith was not what made the difference. It was grace. And that would have been true no matter what…

Happy Mother’s Day to each of you: daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers-or-not, friends, women, men. May faith be yours. May grace overwhelm. And may hope, yes always hope, endure.

A POSTSCRIPT: I would not be writing any of this, thinking any of these thoughts, believing (and sometimes doubting) any of this were it not for my mom and her faith. Thanks, Mom. I love you. Happy Mother’s Day.

[Portions of this post first appeared in January of 2013.]

Tears

Feb 2, 2016 | Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

Tears are a river that takes you somewhere…Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace better. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I had been in months of conversation with my Spiritual Director – trying to theologically, ethically, psychologically puzzle out the pain of my marriage. Back then, the thought of leaving it never occurred to me. I had to make it work. It was my responsibility, my fate, my plight, my promise.

And so, week after week she and I would talk of the desert and the story of Hagar (my favorite) and her God. Week after week we would talk of my desert and my story and my God – the one that kept me bound and gagged, stuck, and imprisoned in promises and covenants and vows. Now mind you, I didn’t talk of God this way. I didn’t even believe this about God. But in truth, because I somehow had my choices (or seeming lack thereof) tightly wound ‘round my inherited beliefs, I really was imprisoned. Not by God, but by my ideas and faulty understandings of God.

Patiently, consistently, week after week, she would ask the smallest of questions that would open up my heart just a little bit more to a God that she knew and I wanted to know. And the smallest of shifts would take place.

Sometimes they felt as futile as pouring a glass of water on a desert full of sand and hoping for a lake; other times, they were an ample pour that soothed my deepest thirst.

One day she said, “We’ve talked much of the desert, Ronna – the heat, the sand, the journey, the diffculty. Where is the water? Where is the water for you?” I sat there for a few minutes, slightly incredulous that she would even ask such a thing. Finally, tears rolling down my cheeks, I said, “That’s the problem! There is no water for me! I’m totally parched, endlessly looking for some relief, some easing of this excruciating pain.”

And just as calmly as she’d asked the question, she then said this, “That’s not what I see, at all. There is plenty of water. Lots of it, actually. Do you not see?”

I responded hurriedly, even angry: “No! I don’t see. I don’t know where the water is. I am so thirsty. Tell me?” Graciously, she handed me a box of tissues and said, “Your tears, Ronna. Your tears.”

What makes the desert beautiful,’ said the little prince, ‘is that somewhere it hides a well… ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

How could I not have seen?

I remember moments in elementary school, middle school, high school and beyond when something would be said that wounded me or caused profound shame. My instinctual response was tears. I’d try to hide them, but that was not easily done, given that my face would turn red, and red-rims would immediately form around my eyes even if I was able to prevent the actual tears from falling. When I was finally alone, whether hiding behind my locker door or in my bedroom at night, I would cry and cry and cry. Such sadness would pour forth.

And this is hardly something from just my past. Even now, I cry. A couple months ago, there was a period of two or three nights in which I cried myself to sleep – so sad over an ending relationship that once again (!!!) completely broke my heart. Two weeks ago, while visiting my sister across the country, I caught a horrible cold. One night I took myself to bed at 6:00 – unable to sit in the living room one second longer. My head was completely congested. Crying was not helpful, given how much liquid was already clogging my sinuses. But I was so miserable, that it was all I could do. The tears came, I wiped them away along
with the snot, and I prayed for the mercy of sleep.

What if my tears are gift? What if they are the well in my desert?

When Hagar cried out in her desert, an angel came, the Divine showed up, she was heard and seen. Her tears called the Divine to her side. And if her, perhaps me, as well.

Perhaps all my searching for the Divine was and is “answered” in my tears. Perhaps the water that pours forth in the driest of places, the harshest of places, and even the most lovely, is the Divine in liquid, watery form. Perhaps my tears are the Divine. Perhaps.

And if so, then the Divine has always been with me. In my bedroom alone at night, hiding behind my locker door, in sadness, in sickness, and yes, in health. My tears have been an embodied experience that expresses my very soul. Which IS where the Divine dwells, shows up, lives, and moves –  the same spark that dwells within us all.

And hey, even if it’s not the Divine (which I believe it is), it is still a miracle – just like the angel that showed up for Hagar. It is a miracle for me to see my tears as an expression of my soul; as a way in which I have an embodied knowing that I can trust…

The awareness of this overwhelms me, actually, and makes me cry. Which means it is true. Which means I’m right. Which means that right here, in this place, at this computer, within this post, as word number 925 is typed, I am embodied, my soul is engaged, and the Divine is – as always – present…and handing me another box of tissues.

If me, then you, as well.

May it be so.

 

*****

The conversations I had with my Spiritual Director over many hours and many years formed a profound basis for the work I do today – handing you a (virtual) box of tissues, hearing your stories, seeing your heart, welcoming your soul, and
finding/expecting/experiencing the Divine that is and always has been here and present and real.

Undoing old understandings. Inviting new ones. And deepening your connection to the infinite wisdom you do hold within, in your very soul. Learn more.

Coexistence: Goodness AND Struggle

Jun 13, 2015 | Mothers and Daughters, Women's Wisdom

Emma Joy graduates from high school today.

For the past few weeks, nearly everything she’s done or said has provoked a flood of memories: holding her for the very first time, unable to take my eyes off of her as she slept, weeping at her miraculous presence in my arms, at my breast, in my life. I remember her first laugh (and how I repeated my same actions over and over again, just to hear that sound one more time), her first steps, her first day of school, her first time on stage, her first solo, her first heartbreak. And by the time this week is over, I will remember her cap and gown, her honor chord, her walk across a platform, her handshake, my tears, her smiles, her photographs with friends, her presents, our celebratory dinner, and her diploma in hand.

As glorious as every one of these moments are, not one of them cancels out my memory of the agony from which she came.

Our proclivity is high to only focus on the good, to  fix our gaze on the beautiful, to disallow anything that darkens our mind or heart’s door. I feel that temptation and lure, believe me, but somewhere in the mix of my life I have learned something else, something more.

It is the embracing of the complexity of life that makes it that much more glorious to behold.

My experience of becoming a mother was preceded by nearly  five years of infertility. Nearly 60 cycles of hope, waiting, disappointment, despair, and summoning up hope yet again. It exhausted me. It shut me down. And it pulled me apart. I held firmly to my faith on the one hand – longing for a miracle, and on the other, I threatened to throw the baby out with the bathwater (only there was no baby) – wanting to walk away from a God that so blindly turned away from my heartache.  Every 28 days I transitioned. Every 28 days another emotional rollercoaster ensued. Every 28 days I bargained again, prayed more, promised everything. And every 28 days I raged.

Admittedly, I was filled with ecstasy beyond-compare when I found out that I was pregnant. But way beneath the surface (and not revealed until some time later) was an awareness of loss. That pink bar on a home test meant I would no longer be able to say, “I understand” to the women in whom I’d found such profound solidarity and respite. The doctor’s eventual confirmation meant that I could no longer question God’s faithfulness or care. Both of these realities disturbed me. The honesty I’d been able to express – with women who shared my pain and with a God who allowed my anger – was raw and strong and powerful.  I didn’t want to let go of those experiences or the woman I’d birthed into being through what was one of the hardest seasons of my life.

Emma’s presence in my life and every bit of joy she’s ushered into my world is made that much more glorious because I feel (again and again) the grief, the sadness, the lost-solidarity, the rage and the over-the-moon pride and happiness and glee and satisfaction of watching her this very day.

Nothing is taken away from the goodness because the struggle coexists. Nothing. This is the stuff of life – recognizing, naming, allowing, holding all of it – not just the parts we prefer.

Even Emma’s graduation is complicated. It’s joyous beyond-belief and it means that soon, very soon, she leaves me. Goodbyes are imminent. Separation and growth are inevitable. Risk and challenge and trial and error and failure and learning and heartbreak and celebration will be what both of us will step into in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

In truth, this very day, Emma’s graduation day, sits me right smack in the middle of all my emotions, all my memories, all my hopes, all my fears. To run from the harder ones in the hopes of only experiencing the good ones is not only naïve, it lessens the depth and poignancy of all that’s worth honoring; it lessens my honoring of her. Every bit of this day is worth cherishing. Every bit of it is what makes it so real, so true, so alive (which is sometimes painful and always perfectly fine).

This post hasn’t gone quite where I expected – wanting it to wildly-affirm Emma on her incredible accomplishment, milestone, occasion. And I hope I have honored her by recognizing that in all the complexity of my story and hers, she has made it to this day with complexities of her own (and more to come). These are what make this day and this young woman so incredibly glorious.

In mere hours I will behold her in awe, in gratitude, and in the profound awareness of all that makes her who she is, all that has happened to get us to this day, all the messy, brilliant, excruciating, blissful stuff – past, present, and future.

This does honor her: every bit of me showing up – rife with feeling, fully aware, and real-true-alive (which is sometimes painful and always perfectly fine).

Step bravely and beautifully into all the life that awaits you Emma. Let yourself be real-true-alive (which is sometimes painful and always perfectly fine). And remember that you are loved and loved and loved for all the complexity that makes you, you: glorious, magnificent, my very heart.

About rain and tears and grief

Feb 16, 2015 | Hope & Encouragement, Women's Wisdom

My desk sits in front of two windows that look out on stark trees. For now, there are no leaves in sight. And the rain continues to fall and fall and fall. I suppose I could look at the bright side: the ever-green grass, the vast foliage, the lack of dry skin for the plethora of moisture. All of these things would be true. But those silver linings are quickly forgotten in the endless gray and endless wet.

I cannot tell you how many seasons, exactly like this one, I have said, “I have to get out of here!” And yet one day follows after the next, Spring arrives, then Summer, and I remember, once again, at least one of the reasons why I stay: days that are so clear, so gorgeous, so glorious that I can barely take them in.

Weather, yes; so too, in life.

Seasons that are dark and bleak. Tears that fall and fall and fall like rain. Endless gray and endless wet. The disbelief that warmth will ever return.

It will. I promise.

Your willingness to allow dark and bleak and tear-stained seasons is directly proportionate to the clear and gorgeous and glorious you that will yet shine forth. I promise.

And though it’s not the advice you usually hear, take mine: Weep, wail, and scream. Let it all out. A cloudburst. A downpour. Get drenched. Your grief is what makes you more tender, more vulnerable, more real. Your heartbreak is what enables you to tell
your truth in ways heretofore unheard. Your tears are what water the soil of the life you are yet to birth, yet to bring forth, yet to offer this world.

Take your finger out of the dyke and flood the world with the oceans you’ve been keeping at bay.

Why? Because as surely as the sun will return to my neck of the woods – you will survive, you will heal, you will rise. I promise.

Those who have the courage and capacity to grieve are those who have the courage and capacity to yet stand, to still hope, to live and live and live.

I promise.

A letter to myself

May 9, 2014 | Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Dear Me:

Exhaustion. I see it. It’s down deep, far beneath the surface. A weariness that comes from holding on to your passions, your principles, your desires, though not without cost. Clinging to what often feels like mist and shadow – evading you at every turn; dust in the wind.

The wind. I hear it. A sometimes hollow, aching wail that echoes through your soul. It catches on the jagged edges of grief and one-too many unmet expectations. The longing for a gentle breeze instead of gale-forces. Respite wanted: a spring, a well, a stream, an ocean. 

The ocean. It carries you. A mysterious and fluid world that’s compelled by the darkest moon. Waves that shuttle you to shore and leave you adrift – at least for a time; raw, exposed. Rushing back, they shock you with their salty cold. Every sandcastle washed away. Carried far, far from anything you’ve ever known. But still you float, still you journey, still you survive. Because you can see the horizon ahead – blazing like fire. 

Fire. It’s what you know best. A burning that will not cease, on-the-edge of painful, ever-present. Flames licking at the internal editors who tell you to be quieter, tamer, more predictable, less. Scorching through every hindrance, every tie that binds, every page or precept or Book that has told you what you must and must not do, must and must not say, must and must not believe. It’s a bonfire. One that has singed and suffered your kin for their inherent magic, their inherent wisdom, their inherent power. It’s no wonder you are fevered, disoriented, and uncertain whether you are hot or cold, sick or well, crazy or sane. 

Sanity. It’s what you possess. The madness you feel is the strongest evidence that you have never before been more balanced, more cogent, more aligned. Hang on. Hold tight. Don’t give in. Let the wind blow. Ride the waves. Fuel the fire. And go ahead: let everyone think you’re crazy. You can handle all of this and then some. I promise. 

Love, 

Me