I feel, somehow, like I'm expected to be more hopeful. I feel, somehow, like because I believe in God, I should be praying hard core for a miracle every second of everyday. I feel, somehow, like because I am a Christian, I should not be sad. I feel, somehow, like I'm supposed to be/ am expected to be strong and filled with Bible stories of hope and faith and God's faithfulness and his omniscience and his control. Like I'm somehow supposed to just lift up my hands to praise the God whose plan, whose desire, whose will is to create a life IN me that will not survive OUTSIDE of me. I feel, somehow, that I am disappointing some in my honesty and candor.. "my humanity". I feel like I should just be blindly praying for a miracle without recognizing any part of reality. Afterall, isn't that where most Christians live in these situations? Isn't that where I'm supposed to live? In some Scripture-filled Wonderland of joy and praise?
I don't live there. I did. Long, long ago when the only thing I had ever had to deal with was being fat and ugly and ignored by my grandfather. But after being manipulated emotionally and sexually by my youth minister, acquaintance raped in school, knocked up before I was married (to the embarassment and shame of us, our parents, siblings, and friends), and now the impending death of my unborn son, I don't live in holy scripture wonderland anymore. I live in the fallen world where shit happens. Really bad shit.
Despite living here, in reality, I still believe there's a God who loves me. I cannot believe, however, that it was HIS PLAN, HIS WILL, or HIS DESIRE for these things to happen to me. Who would want to love a God like that? Who would want to SHARE that God with anyone? If I believed that the God I worship is intentionally orchestrating these events in my life, I would choose to have nothing to do with him. And there's no way I would tell anyone about him. (Let me make this a little more real for some) If I thought my FATHER was MAKING these things happen in my life, I'd refuse to believe he loved me at all. These aren't lessons. These aren't 'spiritual corrections'. I'm just saying.
But rather, I believe that when these really bad things happen, there is peace to be found in the pain. Sometimes that peace takes longer than expected. Sometimes, that peace is instantaneous. Either way, it's a peace that passes understanding. Are peace and hope the same thing? I don't know, maybe. Because peace and despair are opposite and mutually exclusive, I would venture to say that peace and hope are linked intrinsically.
Yet sadness can still exist in peacefulness.
And I think that's where I (we) are. We are at peace with the life Everett will have. Inside me. Growing our hearts to be more open to the random acts of life we keep trying to explain and put in organized boxes in our brains because it's easier to explain religious tradition and God's All Knowing (and seemingly mysterious and unknown) Plan, than it is to accept what you can't explain. And in a weird way, Everett exemplifies that. The geneticcounselor seemed fairly confidant that his chromosomal make up is fine. But his body isn't. I will not simplify and 'religiousify' the life of Everett to say that his purpose here is to change our hearts. Or touch someone else's life. Or to do something yet unseen that will have eternal significance. Because Everett himself is eternally significant, if only to his parents. I don't need his life to be something miraculous *He* is miraculous. I don't have to wait on heaven-- or even believe in heaven in the traditional religious way-- to have peace about his death. We have been all but assured that if he does actually go full term, he will not likely survive the delivery. If I believed the traditional religious way, I would have to praise a God who orchestrated the demise of my son. I am a mother. I could not praise anything or anyone that planned, organized, and executed the death my child.
But I can be at peace with a God who provides comfort. I can be thankful to a God who loves me so wastefully as to support us with hundreds of friends who pray and petition on our behalf. I am not praying for the miraculous healing of my son. I am praying for the reminder of ostentatious loveof a Father who comforts his children when shit happens. Feel free to pray for whatever you want, but don't feel like I need a miracle. I already have mine.
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