Praying for Grace

Today is Tuesday. Yep - I've been the proud recipient of 3 pregnancy announcements this week. I hate feeling sad when someone tells me they are expecting. I would NEVER be-grudge anyone the happiness related to such news. I just feel so sad for me and R when I hear it. My friend at work told me today that they are expecting. They had a miscarriage this summer and he talked to me about it then and we both cried. Today, he was so sweet and compassionate. I really appreciated his approach at letting me know. We went for a walk outside and he seemed so nervous. What a true and caring friend to have such heart with me when it is such a happy time for him.
I am still sad for myself, though, and for the struggles we are facing. I keep telling myself - 'Everyone has hardships in their own journey's. I wouldn't trade mine for someone else's. I'd rather walk in these VERY UNCOMFORTABLE shoes that I know - than to ever say I'd rather be walking the path of anyone else.' I mean that, too. But some days, it's OK to daydream, right? I wish it was me telling someone that we were expecting. On days like this, it is helpful to me to re-read a Daily Devotion I received back in July:

Devotion:
“How wonderful!!!” I exclaimed! “I am so happy for you!” This was my response to the breaking news that friends of ours from North Carolina had sold their house after it had been on the market for twenty days.

To them it had been a long twenty days. Houses are normally snatched up quickly in their neck of the woods. In our shaky Michigan economy, however, it takes a bit longer. In fact, on the day she announced that her home now sported a sold sign, we turned another page on our calendar marking how long our house had been for sale. Not twenty days, but twenty months to be exact. Although I was genuinely thrilled for her, I was also a tad green with jealousy.

I refer to it as answer envy. It is that “poor me” mentality that creeps into my heart when God answers someone else’s prayers more quickly than mine. Or when He responds with a “yes” when my answer seems to be a “no” or at least a “not right now.” I’ve had my fair share of answer envy outbreaks over the years and at all stages of life.

As a child, I was envious of the kids who came from two-parent homes while I resided in a family torn apart by divorce. No matter how hard I folded my little hands and prayed to God, He just didn’t make my daddy come back to us.

In high school, it was other girls’ good looks, cute clothes or even cute boyfriends that I longed for. Instead, I was granted average looks and donned department store blue-light-special fashions. And, as sports editor of our school paper, although I was every guy’s pal, I was usually nobody’s gal.

In college, I envied those whose prayers for a night in shining armor, complete with sparkly diamond ring, were answered while I remained single. Once married, I struggled with miscarriage and dashed dreams of motherhood. So, for five long years, I slapped a smile on my face to mask my broken heart and attended yet another pale pink or baby blue church shower.

Over the years I have discovered that the cure for answer envy is not always easy because I must play an active role in my own healing. What I need is a shift in perspective. When I “call to God” as encouraged in today’s verse, I must trust that He will keep His word. He will tell me “great and unsearchable things” that I do not know. Sometimes those things are the answers to my request. However, do you know what those great and unsearchable things more often are? They are the reasons He seems not to be answering my original request!

So, instead of only begging God to “sell my house” or “take away my pain” or “fix my kid,” I need also to ask myself some questions. Questions like, “What is my Creator trying to teach me that I might never learn if He were to suddenly pluck me out of this situation?” Or, “What character qualities is He trying to grow in me? Patience, trust, compassion, contentment?”

Not available in quick microwave form, the cure for answer envy must be cultivated moment by moment. We must believe that God will answer. He will clearly say “yes”, “no”, or “not right now.” He is able, ready and willing to answer our prayers—here is the catch—as He sees fit and to grow us to be more like His Son in the process.

So, our “for sale” sign has remained and I continue my stay in God’s waiting room. However, I now know this to be true: I must not merely seek the answer to my prayer. Instead, I must seek a deeper relationship with the answer Giver.

I pray for the strength to be happy, even though I have no idea if I will ever be a parent, to be a friend even when my heart is breaking. I pray that I can sit in God's waiting room for as long as he needs me to and that I learn the lessons of my life in a way that will please Him. I pray to never be a bitter person. Mostly, I pray for Grace during this rough chapter in our lives and after we have closed this chapter.