I recently read this chapter entitled “Enough”
within the book Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist. It resonated within me and I related with
her so much that I wanted to share it with you.
Enough
“Something
extraordinary happened to me today, I found out a dear friend is pregnant. That’s not extraordinary. Everyone I know is pregnant. You think I’m exaggerating, but I have
seventeen pregnant friends, and nine friends with babies born since
September. Not just Facebook friends or
acquaintances either – real see-them-at-church, go-to-their-showers,
send-them-baby-blankets friends.
It’s an epidemic, and
I sometimes think I might be at the center of it – like if you’re my friend,
you’re 883,584 times more likely to get pregnant than if you’re not. I’m like an incredibly successful fertility
drug. My friend Kelly used to say that
if you want to get married, you should be his roommate, because for a couple of
years everyone who moved in with him promptly met someone, fell in love, moved
out, and got married. That’s how I am
with pregnancies. Trying to conceive? Be
my friend. It works for you, but it
doesn’t seem to be working for me.
Henry will be five
this year, and since his first birthday, we’ve been trying to have another
baby—seeing doctors, praying, longing.
I’ve miscarried twice, and one of the pregnancies was twins. And in the meantime, approximately every
woman I know between twenty and forty has announced a pregnancy.
At one point this
winter I was feeling so tender and raw about it that at dinner with my family,
I said, 'If any of you is pregnant, I just need you to tell me now.' I said this to my almost-sixty-year-old
parents and my single brother. They
stared at me with confusion, but at that point, nothing would have surprised
me. My phone’s probably pregnant. That chair over there probably just got
pregnant without even trying.
Clearly, I was not
handling this well. At one point I told
Aaron, 'Pregnant is the new skinny.'
What I meant is, if you know me at all, you know that one of my most
cracked-up, terribly errant beliefs is that skinny people are always
happy. Because I think I would be happy
all day long if I was skinny. If
something upset me, I would just look down at my long, skinny legs –
happiness! If my heart was broken, I’d
just put on a bikini – and that sadness would vanish.
I know this isn’t
true. I know this is crazy talk. I know miserable skinny people. But I confess that sometimes I want to shake
them; I know, I know, this or that has
got you down, but find a three-way mirror and look at your butt. Don’t you feel better now? I know I would.
I found myself
believing the same thing about being pregnant – that all my left-out,
broken-down, fragile, ugly feelings would vanish the second I saw the
all-important line on the pregnancy test.
I know it’s not true, but I felt it.
I became the person
people don’t want to tell they’re pregnant.
I hate that. A friend told me her
happy, fantastic news, and just a second later she burst out crying, afraid for
how this would make me feel. I hate
that. I work really hard to arrange my
face in such a way that approximates uncomplicated glee. And I am happy for them, of course. But sometimes just after the happiness is the
desperation. Some days are easier than
others.
At one point I told
Aaron that if I found out I wasn’t pregnant that month, I’d break something
glass, just to feel it shatter in my hands.
I was counting the days all the time, recounting, hoping. And then I found out I wasn’t pregnant. Again.
I didn’t break anything, but I posted something on my blog about how I
was feeling. I should have been doing
all sorts of other, more urgent work, but that morning at the coffee shop, all
that sadness and frustration and confusion bled out of my fingers and onto the
screen.
Later that week I had
lunch with my friend Emily. She lives in
Michigan and came in town to visit. To
be honest, I hoped she hadn’t read my post.
She was one of my seventeen pregnant friends, and I wanted to talk about
her baby and her pregnancy – about cravings and names and maternity
clothes. I wanted it to be a sweet,
happy lunch. And it was. We talked about all the lovely baby stuff,
and then she gave me a card and a gift.
She told me that she
had read my post, and that this was the point in friendship when sometimes two
friends walk away from each other for a while, because the pain and the
awkwardness and the tenderness was too great.
She said she thought we could do better than that.
And then she handed
me two pairs of safety goggles.
She said, 'When you
feel like shattering something, I’ll be right there with you. We’ll put on our safety goggles. I’ll help you break something, and then I’ll
help you clean it up.'
She said, 'You’ve
been celebrating with me, and I’ll be here to grieve with you. We can do this together.'
It took my breath
away. We cried together at the
restaurant, the two of us, one pregnant, one not, sitting next to the window of
an Italian restaurant on a busy street, each with a pair of Home Depot safety
goggles, tears running down our faces.
It was one of the
most extraordinary experiences of friendship I’ve ever had. Because it would have been so easy for her to
say, 'I’m in my happy season. This is a
wonderful, blessed season for me, and I don’t want Angry Pants over here
wrecking it.' She could have concluded
it was so complicated to manage her joy and my sadness that she wouldn’t enter
into this mess. But she did enter in.
Something broke
inside me that day. Something cracked,
and all the energy and fear and roiling anger drained out. I felt calm and empty. I felt sad but not devastated. I was exhausted and couldn’t carry it
anymore.
Enough.
It had reached fever
pitch – consuming, obsessive, frantic.
Unsustainable. It was like an
addiction, and that moment was like getting sober – raw, silent, clear-eyed,
the absolute stillness after a storm. It
felt like praying.
When I was sitting
with Emily celebrating her good news, I felt what I’ve wanted to feel all along
but couldn’t locate: uncomplicated and
deep happiness. I felt happy for
her. Very, very happy. And I feel so thankful for that feeling, for
being able to be uncomplicatedly happy for the people I love.
It could all change
again next month, I know. I’ve been
around this block for years now: easier
and harder, more complicated and less. I‘m all serene and happy right now, but I could be back to throwing glassware
next month. Today, though, I’ll take
what I can get.
Enough: I don’t want to live like that anymore. And enough:
I have enough. I have more than I
need, more than I could ask for. I have
a son who delights me every single day.
A husband I adore. A family that
walks with me well and friends who make the world feel rich. I do work I care about – no small thing.
It’s not wrong to
want another baby, but there’s a fine line in there, and I feel I’ve crossed it
a few times these last months, and moved over into that terrible territory
where you can’t be happy unless you have just that thing you want, no matter
what else you have. Speaking of
children, that’s how they are – demanding, myopic, only able to focus on what
they need in that moment. That’s not how
I want to live. That’s not who I want to
be.
I want to cultivate a
deep sense of gratitude, of groundedness, of enough, even while I’m longing for
something more. The longing and the
gratitude, both. I’m practicing
believing that God knows more than I know, that he sees what I can’t, that he’s
weaving a future I can’t even imagine from where I sit this morning.
Extraordinary,
indeed.
More than enough.”
Today, I am filled with gratitude for
the dear people in my life that have shown up with “safety goggles” and chosen
to enter into the mess of my current struggle.
The Hunter and I greatly appreciate each of you and the love, support, sensitivity,
encouragement, prayers and kindness that you have gifted us with. "Thank you," especially to the dear friends who
have bravely shared with me their pregnancies and allowed me to enter into their
season of joy and expectation. It takes
a generous amount of courage to risk pain, awkwardness and misunderstanding in
order to bridge diverse seasons of joy and heartache. Thank you for being courageous.
The neat thing about gratitude is that
it opens the lenses of one's heart to see more and more of the good surrounding them. No doubt, I am experiencing joy in other
areas that may be places of tremendous sorrow for you. I hope to be just as courageous and
compassionate as Shauna’s friend was above…willingly entering into another’s mess…showing
up with joy to share, tears ready to shed, and “safety goggles" for any shattering.
2
Thessalonians 2:16-17 ESV
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself,
and God our Father, who loved us and gave
us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort
your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Every journey and perspective is uniquely
different. Infertility continues to be a
part of our journey. Where ever you are
today, I am happy you have visited my blog and I wonder if you also are
balancing both deep longing and gratitude. I
pray that you realize fully that God and his grace are definitely more than
enough for you and your journey. Cling
to Him…for oh, how He loves you! And,
the Lord is faithful!
2
Thessalonians 3:5 ESV
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing this
ReplyDelete