A Life Re-Imagined

A couple nights ago, I pulled out God's Design for Women by Sharon James, a book that I'd read five years ago, when I'd been engaged.  One of the last chapters, "The Ministry of Comfort," which deals with women who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, rape, abortion, etc., was one that I probably glossed over at the time.  Didn't think it applied, or would apply.  Not that I am technically deemed infertile (yet), but a couple of nights ago, I read that chapter a lot more closely and it really hit home.

This particular passage really popped out for me, and I couldn't help getting teary-eyed:

The Bible is brutally honest that life in the here and now will not always be happy, and that the effects of sin are terrible and far-reaching.  It does not offer health and wealth and family success as our rights: rather it depicts the whole of creation as groaning.  God's people must expect suffering, our bodies grow frail, loved ones are unexpectedly snatched by death.  It is clear that the purpose of our lives is not to be healthy, prosperous, to have a nice family or do well at work.  The purpose of life is to know God.  When we know God, we have abundant life and real joy.  Throughout church history, and today, many Christians have testified through the most intense suffering and pain that God has been with them and for them in it all.  That kind of Christianity is powerful.  It speaks with a clearer voice than all the fine words of those who know little of pain.

I know that God doesn't promise me biological children, but it's hard to wrap my head around this when all of my life it'd felt like a given.  If I was going to suffer anything, it wouldn't be this.  It might be terminal illness, job loss, death of my spouse, lifelong acne, severed friendships.  I don't know...anything but (possible) infertility.  This concept has forced me to re-imagine my life, which has been absolutely earth-shattering for me.

In my angriest scenarios, I think of us without children, living in a beautiful, well-kept small home.  Luxury cars in the driveway (definitely a two-seater sports car because we wouldn't need the back seats).  Vacations to exotic locations that do not rotate around the school calendar.  Designer clothes.  Of course, this makes the big assumption that we will be making good money since we won't have kids.  Not something God has guaranteed either, but this is my fantasy, go with it.  This is when I'm angriest at God, and want to throw it back in His face.

When I'm at my most humble, it is a life with adopted children because maybe we've tried fertility treatments and they didn't work.  Maybe we decided to not do IVF because of the moral implications (my jury is still out on this one).  Instead, we have adopted one or two children and they are our family.  And we love them intensely the way we would if they were our own biological children.  We would have to deal with other issues -- how would we feel around others who were able to biologically conceive, or what if one day our child wanted to find his biological parents.  But overall, it would be a great opportunity to give someone a loving home and raise him to know the Lord.  That is my best worst case scenario, if you know what I mean.

In the end, whatever way our lives fall, and if children fit into that picture, and whether those children are biologically ours or not, I don't want to spend my life angry with God.  I want to be joyful.  And part of that, in a practical sense, is being able to visualize a life that is different from what I'd originally imagined...and being ok with it.