(Courtesy of Google Images)
But I have a confession to make. Every time I hear a pregnancy announcement made under the premise that it was God’s answer to prayers, there is a part of me that shrinks back as though stung. Recoiling from the shock. The indication that God answered their prayers but not mine. That God wanted them to be pregnant, but not me.
And while I recognize that people aren’t saying that at all when they praise God for their blessings, I can’t help but feel it. As though they have conjured up this image in their heads of a God sitting on high picking and choosing who does and does not get pregnant.
I just can’t imagine that’s how it actually works though. Not with all the babies brought into this world by women who clearly don’t want them. Women who make the decisions to abort them, or have them with no real ability to care for them. There is too much abuse, and neglect, and sadness for me to believe that God chose those women and families to have babies over the homes where they would be nurtured and loved and cared for. If God was sitting on high picking and choosing whose wombs to bless, I have to believe that He would choose stable homes. Loving homes. Homes where children would be given the best of the best.
I just have to believe that He would choose better.
And I’m not even saying I would qualify under those guidelines, because I know that in my current single state I would be lacking in certain parental areas. But… I have to believe that if God really were the one behind the placement of each and every one of these miracle babies; there would be no more children born into the arms of mothers who are wholly incapable of caring for them.
I think it all has far more to do with biology. And free will.
Because we all know how I feel about free will.
I just can’t believe that God would choose a crack head, or a woman who is only going to abort, or a teenager still a child herself to bless with a pregnancy and not me.
I just don’t buy it.
So I can’t help but think that my inability to get pregnant isn’t so much an unanswered prayer as it is just one of life’s circumstances. One of those things that simply happens. And while I believe with all my heart that God can turn this entire situation into something good, I don’t necessarily believe that He created it. Or that He chose not to answer my prayers while in the same moment answering the prayers of others.
Granted, if I had achieved a pregnancy, I’m sure I would have done the same. It’s in the nature of anyone with faith to want to attest all of our blessings to God. But if we’re willing to accept that sometimes bad things just happen as the result of free will and circumstance, isn’t it just as logical to assume that good things can happen in much the same way?
It's all just so damn confusing though. Trying to wrap my head around it is exhausting.
Because where does the difference lie? Why are we so quick to attribute the good in our lives to God, but not the bad? Where does the distinction come in? How do we know when something is God’s will, and when it’s just… free will? When something is an unanswered prayer, versus simply being an unrealistic prayer? When a miracle is really just… biology?
God created us to procreate. He made our bodies in such a magnificent way that reproduction was possible. So, when any of us conceive, is it really a matter of God choosing us to bless, or is it more a matter of free will colliding with biology? The logical outcome of trying to conceive (or not inhibiting conception) simply coming true?
I hope I don’t offend anyone with these questions. That I don’t leave anyone thinking I’m ungrateful, or losing my faith. Because neither is true. I have been feeling God in my life more and more lately, and that feeling is not fading. But I suppose I’m just wondering how all the pieces fit together. How it is that we determine God has chosen to bless us rather than someone else. Why we are all so willing to accept God’s will… so long as it works out exactly as we prayed for it to.
I am not questioning my faith, or God, but maybe I’m questioning how I believe. And the expectations I rather unfairly lay upon His feet.
Where my failings are in all of this, rather than His.
Because if I’m being completely honest?
I spent much of today wondering why I didn’t get my miracle.
And the only conclusion I could come to is that it just doesn’t work like that.
Sometimes biology is just biology, and free will leads to obvious outcomes.
But in the back of my mind, I know. A baby is always a miracle.
And I suppose I can only pray that one day I too will be blessed.
