Agony in the Garden

It has been over a week since I have even thought about most things.  I am in the stage of better let things be and not think about it.  However, that is unhealthy and not helping me towards my goal.  My goal of healing, of seeing me as me and seeing good.  On my way home from work as I was praying a rosary, I was mediating/thinking about the Agony  in the Garden.   That is where I am currently.  I am in the Garden with Jesus, but I am not at the point of asking God to remove this pain if he is willing and accepting it if he is not, I am just in the sorrow.  I am just in the pain.  I don't want to accept it, yet I am not even asking God to remove it, I am just there.  I don't know how else to describe it. 

One day, I will ask God to remove it or I will accept it, but not today.  Today is just the pain, just the sorrow.  Just the darkness I see when I actually take time to look inward.  I don't know why this darkness is there, but it is so hard to get out of.  When I take time to try and look at it, really look at it, I just see black.  I don't know where to begin,  I don't know where to start, it just all around me.  I know I need to take time to look into more and heal.  So much healing to be done.  I am going to write the ways I need to heal,  each post I hope to address each one

• Middle school years - I was the kid that everyone picked on because of my speech.  I need to look at this and heal so that I can one day help middle school/high school students.
• High school/college - Just some friend stuff and being told I couldn't be an RA
• Asked to leave the convent - This one will take many, many posts. I need to look not only at the journey to get there but my time there, I need to let go and not be angry anymore
• Failing as a teacher - After teaching for four years unsuccesfully, I need to let go instead of holding on 
• All the times I have been told no in little things- no explanation needed, we have all been there

Notice I left out infertility.  Infertility is just another cross I bear.  One that I am not ready to address (that whole just being in the garden thing.  I need to address all this past stuff.  One thing as I address the past I must do so with lens of healing and seeking God's love.  The past is the past, I have gone to confession for my mistakes and I am forgiven, but the scars are still there.  I know this journey is bleak, but it is one I must take, so I can see the good in me.  

Please pray for me as a make this journey.  I hope to post at least once a week.   

A Time To Heal

Prayer:

"Lord, open my heart to see myself as you see me.  Help me to trust you, Lord that is there is a part of me that I cannot see.  Lord open my eyes."

That prayer came after a tearful, emotional session with my S.D.  I have an awesome spiritual director who has seen me thick and thin.  I always look forward to talking to Fr. E.A. but this past Saturday was just what I needed.  It was my first chance to talk to him about the amazing retreat I went on three weeks ago, in fact I surprised him because I didn't get a chance to tell him about it.  He was amazed about how much I had changed for the better.   After telling him all about the retreat the amazing revelations I had during it, the topic came up about how I am healing.

I was talking to him about how a lot of what is coming up stems from my infertility and how it is too much to bear.  I quoted him one of my favorite movies, "A walk to Remember" , Jamie says a line that has been resonating in my heart this week "I don't need a reason to be angry with God."   I basically feel like that, yet I have so many reasons to be angry, to not what to trust, to not want to turn to Him, when I need him the most.  I was doing okay, I moved on from being devastated, I moved on, I got married, we bought I house, we want a family, yet God gives me another cross to bear.   One that makes me realize that I am not okay, that I am not the person I am being called to be, that I buried that person 8 years ago and have not looked back. 

Infertility has made me realize how much I feel like a failure, how much I feel useless, how many mistakes I made.  That is where the prayer came from.  I once saw that women who God created to be lovable, to be joyful, to do His work, yet I have buried her so deep inside.   Now all I can see is my failures, and I can't see that person who I know is in there.  It is like the best part of me is trapped.  I cannot see any good right now.

Father asked me who was trapped, but would she look like.  As I started to talk about her, I realize that my dreams, my desires, are real.  What I long to do is not possible right now, yet I can use this time to heal.  I can dig deep and heal wounds.  I can open scarred over wounds that never healed probably to heal.  My pastor made a good point on Sunday.  He said only look back so that you can love God more and see his Mercy.  That is what I need to do.  I need to find God's love me again.   It is the same love that called me to explore religious life, it is the same love that allowed me to forgive a friend, it is the same love the brought me to Chris.  It is all around me, but I have a hard time seeing it right now.  

So I must continue on, trusting God.  Yeah that trust word.  That in itself is hard for me, but I know in my head that I can trust Him, I just need to let that trust work its way down to the heart.  So in this waiting period in life, I must use it to heal, to become whole again.  I must not waste this time,  I must allow healing to happen.  

I ask for prayers for all who read this.  My journey is just beginning, I know that, but I have come so far already.  I am new to this scene, but know I am praying for each one of you as well. 

 

Some Random Thoughts

Recently I have had a bunch of random thoughts floating around in my head and I thought I would take the opportunity to share some of them

• NEW DIET: I am on a new diet; well I am trying to be on a new diet.  I decided that I really should avoid soy/dairy (lactose)/gluten and see how I feel.  So far, it has been on of the hardest things I have ever done.  I am not doing it very well either.  I could easily avoid gluten and/or lactose as I have done a lactose free diet before.  However avoiding soy is extremely difficult.  I find that I cannot avoid it some days.  Today was especially bad day for the diet; I gave in and had a bagel at work with butter.  Today at lunch I got a chicken salad salad which I assumed was made of mayonnaise that had soy in it.  Sigh, I hope I do better tomorrow.

• CRAZY CYCLES: My cycle for the past two cycles as been crazy.  This cycle has been extremely hard so far; I had 8 days of spotting/light flow with mainly brown stuff, then BAM! the heavy stuff comes for three days.  I am hoping it is winding down now.  As much as I hated tamoxifen, especially the hot flashes, it did help with the cycles.  Granted, my cycles were 7 weeks on it, but at least I didn’t have mid-cycle spotting on a ton of brown bleeding.  Which leads me to think that I might truly have low progesterone, however because I started my cycle almost immediately after peak day, I could not do P+7 bloodwork again.  Sigh.

• NEXT STEPS: I am ready to continue treatments for infertility.  I am ready for the surgery that I should have had months ago, only problem is I can't go to the doctor until DH is tested.  This has been difficult to say the least, mainly due to my crazy cycles, it seems every time he schedule's it my cycle won't allow us to.  So instead of going this Friday like planned, because AF decided to be 14 days this cycle, we are going to try again in two weeks.  Please pray that we can actually do the test.  I will then go back to my doctor, with hopefully positive results ready for the next step.  I hope she is on the same page as me.  I rather do the surgery now, make sure everything is okay, before I try Clomid again.  She is my doctor so I will let her decide, but I am ready to do the surgery, which I wasn’t a few months ago, which leads me to my next thought.

• THE CROSS I CARRY: I have been struggling in my spiritual life for some time.  Most of you who will read this don’t know my history or where I have been, however do know that I have had a pretty patchy relationship with God for the past 8 years.   Recently, I have been working on healing.  I first need to let go of my anger at God for sending to religious life only to be asked to leave after 9 months.  I need to “forgive God” so to speak.  Yet I am finding that hard to do.  Not only that, but I need to stop trying to define myself by what I do and start accepting who I am to God.  I do not like myself.  There I said it, I don’t like who I am.  I feel like the best part me is trapped inside and won’t come out.  I am not sure when or if they person will come out.  I am not sure if I waiting to be a mother or if I am holding back for some other reason, but I feel trapped.  Infertility has of course complicated the matter.  Because I am struggling sometimes I feel that God is just waiting for me to figure everything out and then I will get pregnant.  But of course that actually how I think about life, not how God does.  I am always looking for that perfect moment to start a good prayer life, the perfect chance to talk to DH, the perfect chance to start this blog, eventually I just have to do it.  God knows when or if I will be a mom.  I just have to trust him.  Hmm, there is that trust thing again; I am having a hard time with that as well.   How can I trust God when I have been hurt so badly and this is just another cross I have to carry?  It is time that I actually face this cross instead of pretending it is not there or does not bother me.   I am finally starting to see the connections between my infertility and my struggle to accept myself.   I need to look at them together in order to heal, in order to be whole, in order to see myself as a Daughter of God.  I just want to feel whole again, but how can I feel whole when I am struggling with something as large as infertility?  How can I forgive God, when he gave me something else to be burden with?  I know that facing these things is part of my healing process.  A few months ago I was at a breaking point, where I just broke down and started crying because I realized how far away I was from God and how broken I was.  My tendency in the past has been to harden my heart and move on.  But not this time, I need to let this emotions be raw for a while, I need to truly heal this broken heart.  

Those are my random thoughts.  That last one is a heavy one on my heart.  It is something that I need to sit with and think/pray more about.  Getting it off my chest helps me get my thoughts together, thank you for reading.   Please pray as I continue my journey.

Rainbow!

I just wanted to share this photo.  I took it today when i came out of Target.  Rainbows remind that God is still watching over me and he always keeps his promises.  I know that God has a plan for me and I just have to be patient.   Enjoy the picture!

First Post

As I begin this blog, I am not sure where it will lead, how often I will post, or what i will post. I don't know exactly even where to begin.  I just know that I feel the need to do this now.

I just came back from an amazing retreat, where I got to bet fellow IF couples who are going through all my struggles.  They are going through the same emotions day in and day.  It was such a blessing.  Thank you to all the priest and the organizer.  It was probably the best weekend I have had in a while.  This weekend also made my IF real for me.  For a long time, I did not want to accept that I was truly IF, but just having a hard time.  I was trying just to say it is not God's time yet.  I never focused on it.  I tried not to think about it, just tried to continue on.  But at the same time, I was focusing on it.  I did not work for 9 months, hoping to get pregnant.  I question all the time if I should schedule something that far out, in case I get pregnant.  One thing I walked away with this weekend is to live!  My blog title comes from that that love may abound more and more, that I might grow in love.   

I have so much more to say, but this is a start at least.