When I read this book earlier this year, I laughed out loud at times and I cried...a lot. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It is a honest and raw look at life in every season. Stories of hope and heartache and ones that will make your yearn for closer relationships with friends and family, stories of change.
There was a section of the book that jumped out to me the other day and I just kept reading it over and over...trying to let the truth of the statement sink in to my heart.
“When you haven’t yet had your heart really broken, the gospel isn’t about death and rebirth. It’s about life and more life. It’s about hope and possibility and a brighter future. And it is, certainly, about those things.
But when you’ve faced some kind of death— the loss of someone you loved dearly, the failure of a dream, the fracture of a relationship— that’s when you start understanding the central metaphor. When your life is easy, a lot of the really crucial parts of Christian doctrine and life are nice theories, but you don’t really need them. When, however, death of any kind is staring you in the face, all of a sudden rebirth and new life are very, very important to you.” -Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way
There is such truth to this statement. Truth that makes me feel better and worse at the same time. In our struggle with infertility, there are moments where I have felt so abandon by God and yet I know without Him I couldn't have faced this. The other day I was texting back and forth with a friend who also struggled with infertility for years and at one point I sent her a text that said, "I know He can do anything", and my response shocked me even as I typed it...what was this? Renewed hope? Faith growing from a cold and doubtful heart?
That week had been one of my lowest points of this 3 1/2 year journey and yet I felt like God was speaking to my heart words that when spoken to me by others have often made me shutter.
The truth of God's love and the basis of this life of faith is all about redemption and rebirth. Making all things new. Turning our mourning into dancing. Faith that shows us that He can do anything. Truths of which were mere doctrines before, and ones I would have never experienced or really known without this journey.
My prayer is that I will never forget what this is like. The moments of heartache, the moments of crying in the bathroom at work, moments of shear fear and panic I get when realize how long we have been here....waiting...when the time comes when we can celebrate new life, my prayer is that I will be constantly reminded of those moments of heartache and how they have taught me what this walk of faith is all about. Without pain, we would never understand His redemption and the rebirth that He promises if we believe.
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