Shining My Faith Through Doubt and Wonder

My dad asked to borrow my bible, (The Voice version) to see if he likes it. I, of course, said yes when he noticed I had a bunch of papers stuck in it. I mindlessly took them from him and placed them on my meditation/prayer altar and did not think of them again until this morning during my prayer and meditation time. One was a letter I wrote to God at the end of our church’s Explorations class. Honestly, the class that changed it all for me. This is what I wrote one year ago to God and probably to myself all at the same time,

This has been some of the most challenging years of my life, which I feel like is saying a lot considering what I’ve already been through. And yet, I finally feel, not only more me, but I am finally feeling at peace with me, with You, with it all. I think I need permission to doubt and question, and then I really needed to admit that I was, and maybe still am, so angry at You for what I’ve deemed as unfair. And yet, I also know at the same time that I don’t get that power of what is fair or unfair in this life, in Your kingdom or what You have planned for me. And more than ever before, with this knowledge, with this peace, with Your grace, I am finally trusting You. I feel this sense, Your spirit, inside of me; almost always. I’m still definitely learning and questioning and figuring out how to do this all, but it is with this sense of faith that I’m both proud and a little scared. But I also am going to give myself permission for that fear because I don’t ever want to lose my wonder about this all or about You.

A year has passed since I wrote these words and my sense of trust in them has only grown. This sense that I can stop treading water so hard all the time and know that His hands are underneath me to help me float. This sense that everything will be okay, even if I am not loving it all right now.

A year ago this week was when I walked into the waters of baptism and every day since has been full of growth and wonder. This coming weekend I will take part in my church’s baptism services. I will walk on stage and share my faith testimony with our congregation of thousands. And, in front of those thousands of people my “cardboard testimony” will have the word infertility on it.

What I hope is that I give someone else permission to seek themselves through this journey of infertility.

To know that everything will eventually be okay as we define our own happy ending.

To know that this journey has nothing to do with punishment or what is fair or unfair.

To know that through embracing the complicated gray, they will actually find their truth.

My prayer is that in that dreaded, and yet now completing word to me, infertility, the hope of being okay can shine. And, most of all, that we all can trust that we can rewrite parts of our story, trusting in how He has it all in His hands, and that the end of our story is nothing short of a grace filled miracle.