{"id":5794,"date":"2012-05-30T20:21:50","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T00:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=5794"},"modified":"2012-05-30T20:21:50","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T00:21:50","slug":"waiting-for-gabriel-learning-to-pray-through-infertility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2012\/05\/waiting-for-gabriel-learning-to-pray-through-infertility.html","title":{"rendered":"“Waiting for Gabriel: Learning to Pray through Infertility”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026The aftermath of our diagnosis was extraordinarily painful for both of us.\u00a0 The diagnosis affected not simply our friendships, our own relationship, but particularly our spiritual lives.\u00a0 If you speak to an infertile couple, committed to the Christian life, you\u2019ll notice a pattern:\u00a0 the sexual infertility gradually seeps into the life of prayer.\u00a0 Each morning, I rise and ask God that Kara and I might finally have a child. \u00a0Seemingly, I encounter only the chilly silence of a seemingly absent God.\u00a0 Early in the process, I found particular consolation in the language of the psalms:\u00a0 \u201cMy God, my God why have you abandoned me?\u00a0 Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish?\u00a0 My God, I call by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I have no relief\u201d (Ps. 22:2-3).\u00a0 Like the psalmist, I had my enemies.\u00a0 The well-intentioned barber who stated that the future grandparents must be anxious to get a grandchild out of us. \u00a0The friendly priest, who upon learning that my wife and I in fact do not have children, made it a point to say each time he saw me, \u201cNo children, right?\u201d \u00a0The Facebook feed filled with announcements of pregnancies and births, a constant sign of our own empty nest.\u00a0 God himself became my nemesis:\u00a0 why have you duped me O Lord?\u00a0 Why Kara and I?\u00a0 We have bestowed some aspect of our lives to you, more than many in the world, and our only reward is pain and suffering.<\/p>\n

Such self-pity, while pleasant enough for a time, is both exhausting and a sure way to end up not only infertile but a\u00a0narcissist.\u00a0 You begin to imagine that yours is the only life full of disappointment<\/em>.\u00a0 Yours the only existence defined by sorrow<\/em>.\u00a0 You close off from relationships with other people, particularly those with children, as a way of protecting yourself from debilitating sorrow. \u00a0You cease praying, because the words you utter grow vapid, insipid, uninspiring.\u00a0 In this way, I entered into Sheol, hell itself, cut off from the land of the living. \u00a0Something had to change.<\/p>\n

more<\/a>\u2013really, really powerful<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026The aftermath of our diagnosis was extraordinarily painful for both of us.\u00a0 The diagnosis affected not simply our friendships, our own relationship, but particularly our spiritual lives.\u00a0 If you speak to an infertile couple, committed to the Christian life, you\u2019ll notice a pattern:\u00a0 the sexual infertility gradually seeps into the life of prayer.\u00a0 Each morning, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11,29,26,28,27],"class_list":["post-5794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mackerel-snapping","tag-his-banner-over-me-was-love","tag-marriage-2","tag-suffering","tag-the-sacrifices-god-wants-arent-always-the-sacrifices-you-want-to-make","tag-vocation"],"yoast_head":"\n"Waiting for Gabriel: Learning to Pray through Infertility"<\/title>\n<meta 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