The deepest struggle I have had with my faith came in the midst of my experience of infertility. When we got married, my husband and I envisioned being the typical “good Catholic family”. We married young and were open to as many children as God would bless us with. We weren’t prepared for the possibility that the number of children God would choose to send us could be zero.
We knew I had PCOS and that that may complicate matters a bit, but we were reassured that whilst it might be slower, it was just a matter of time before we would conceive. We tried to do all the right things: found a Catholic doctor, prayed all the prayers, changed our diets and took a million supplements. And yet, year after year, no pregnancy, no children. The experience was painful and wore on me physically, emotionally and spiritually. The wear became obvious to those around me. Well-meaning people struggling to find something to say would often trot out the well-worn platitudes: “just relax,” “just pray more,” “just accept that this is God’s will for you.”
Did God will infertility upon us?
That question caused the greatest spiritual struggle for me. Couldn’t God see that I was suffering? Why would God’s will be to cause me pain? How could a good and loving God do this to me? All we wanted was the blessing of children, a good thing, and we had done all the “right” things. Why were we being denied?
I was angry. So angry that I didn’t want to pray. I didn’t want to talk to a god who would will this upon me. My husband said his prayers alone. I begrudgingly sat next to him in Mass on Sundays, often with tears in my eyes brought on by my mixture of sadness and anger. Over time, I began to soften, to open up again to God, to allow Him into my pain and sorrow and to allow Him to console me. Part of that process of opening up was refuting the lie that God was trying to harm me or cause me pain. God does not actively will any sort of evil. He cannot, as He is only good. But then why does evil exist? For that answer, we have to go back to the beginning.
Why does God allow evil?
God willed that humankind would have the freedom to choose to love him. True love must be free. Unfortunately, our first parents, Adam and Eve abused that freedom of choice. They disobeyed the one rule God had given them. With their first sin, disease, suffering and death entered the world. From that original sin and its effects, we experience brokenness in this world and our lives. Rather than wiping out all of humanity and starting over, God chose to take a much more mysterious and beautiful path. He chose to allow mankind to continue on, even in its broken, rebellious state, but made a plan to save it. A plan that would require the death of God upon the cross to save us from our sins. Even more amazing, it was a plan that would bring us into His family, and would open the doors of eternal life with Him to us.
God saw the sin and brought even greater good out of it. Through God’s answer to original sin, we are raised from mere creatures to adopted children of God. As the ancient saying goes: “O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”
As difficult as it is to understand why God allows evil to continue in this world, we can recognize that He will work all things for good (Romans 8:28). While I may never fully understand it, I have come to accept that God only allows evil because He knows that He has and will overcome it. Overcoming the brokenness caused by original sin may not look like what we had planned, hoped or desired for this life but knowing that God has overcome, we can have the hope of our ultimate fulfillment and joy in eternity with him.
Are we left to suffer on our own?
What was also important for me to realize to begin to open back up to God was that God does not abandon us amidst all the suffering and evil that we face in this life. He accompanies us through it. Even more strikingly, He enters into our pain and suffers with us. He is truly compassionate.
I find the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:17-44) so consoling in my own times of suffering. When Jesus approached the people mourning the death of Lazarus, including his sisters, He was so gentle with and reassuring to them. He did not scold them for the worries and pains they brought to Him. He didn’t say “If you truly believed in me you wouldn’t be crying” or tell them to “just relax”. Rather, He reminded them who He was, the resurrection and the life, and that they could have hope in Him. But He was also deeply moved by their weeping and mourning. Upon reaching Lazarus’s tomb, Jesus wept too (John 11:35). Jesus knew He could, and would, restore Lazarus to life, but he still wept. He still mourned for the death and suffering of His friend Lazarus, and the suffering Lazarus’s family and friends had to endure as a result of the brokenness of this world.
In the same way, Christ is truly compassionate with us. He suffers with us. He weeps with us for the brokenness, suffering and sorrow that we experience as a result of sin and this broken world, including through infertility. But He also gently assures us that He is the resurrection and the life. He wishes to overcome all of our suffering and sorrows and bring us to everlasting happiness in eternal life with Him. His will can be trusted because it is one of love and goodness for us all.
And so I learned that even if I did not understand, I could trust God, because He has a plan of goodness and love for us. And because He does not abandon us, but accompanies us through the darkness.
Surrendering to God’s will
In learning to trust God, I have also been learning to surrender to Him. Surrendering to Him does not mean that there will be no pain and suffering on our journey in this life. We live in a broken world where pain and suffering are unavoidable. But it means that we know He will accompany us through it, and that He will ultimately overcome. If we walk with Him, the pain and sufferings of this life are not the end. Joy and happiness in eternal life with Him awaits us.
And now, 13 years into marriage, my husband and I still have never conceived. However, we have been blessed with two beautiful children through adoption. Two children that have blessed me with so much love and have challenged me to grow and sacrifice for them. My life looks nothing like my original “plan”, but it is more beautiful than I could have imagined or planned myself. And even as God held me in my suffering, and continues to hold me through various difficulties and trials, He knows He can and will overcome them with even more beauty and love.
So now, I remind myself to trust in Him. I work to let go and surrender my future to Him, even if I don’t understand or know where it leads in this life. Because I have seen His good and loving kindness. I see it in the scriptures, in my day-to-day life, and every time I gaze upon the cross or receive the Eucharist. I can trust that whatever I face, He will be with me, and He will overcome. And I know that ultimately it leads to the unparalleled joy of eternal life with Him.
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