What next?

I'm doing it again. I'm thinking. Over-thinking really.

I'm pondering again (in a vain attempt to figure out what God is doing with me) what the next cross in life might be if I am someday healed of IF.

Over the years, I've had quite a few (though by no means all) formerly IF friends and acquaintances who have survived IF and gone on to have new and frankly, far more tremendous crosses after the birth of their baby (babies). Some whose husbands have left them, some who have gone on to trade IF for repetitive miscarriage, some who now struggle with serious faith crises. Sometimes (on my particularly self-centered, mopey days) it's hard to imagine a cross worse than IF, but I know the grass is,...uh...a little less green in the other pasture sometimes and it makes me fearful of the day when I might actually be relieved of this cross.

This is not to say that I think God is some big boogieman, hiding in the bushes--waiting for the perfect moment to pounce and rob us of something we hold precious and dear to us. Nothing of the kind. He knows our pain intimately. He loves us and cries with us when we cry. He allows us to beat our fists against His chest as He draws us closer to Himself in our sorrow. He wants us to share our burdens with Him. He closes the womb in order to open our hearts to Him. Infertility perhaps is a mere path that God has cut for us to each grow closer to Him.

But what happens if/when He cuts short that path? What other thorny path will be ahead after this one?

This life is a vale of tears. Thanks to Adam and Eve, we live in a fallen world and are not meant to be 100% happy in this life--that's for us to look forward to in the next life. My Catholic faith teaches me that there is something very valuable and redemptive about our suffering here in this world. If we are blessed with a pregnancy, I know that life isn't suddenly just going to become peaches and cream until the day we die. Life is, well...going to continue to hurt in some way shape or form even if we're delivered from one particular cross.

I want to want what God wants for me, even the painful things He wants me to endure for that greater good. I try to pray (sometimes--when the spirit moves me) to desire this cross. Of course God knows best, but part of me thinks that if I train myself, I really can grow <gulp> fond of this cross if I have the proper understanding of it as a means to grow closer to Him. It's sort of like St. Therese of the Little Flower's Little Way...if you want what God wants, even if it's difficult, then maybe it won't be so difficult to deal with after all.

It's clear that God wants me to have this cross or I'd be preggo or with a quiverful of kids by now. I so clearly trust that He knows what's better for me, but I wonder, in the words of CS Lewis, "We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."

But sometimes I think that after 10 years, I've grow accustomed to this particular cross and hate it though I do with every ounce of my being, I'd rather have this one than, say to lose my husband to an early, untimely death.

Perhaps that is the key right now. Perhaps this is what God is trying to tell me. Maybe this is the point of any cross--namely to help us hone in on the blessings that we DO have right before us right now. We've been given so much but take so much for granted.

Lord, thank you for the many many blessing in my life, namely my faith, my husband, the two children you have blessed us with and for the ability to stay at home with them. Help me to be a good steward of the talents and treasures You've given me. Help me to use my cross worthily as a tool to draw closer to You--at least for as long as You desire me to carry it.