Thank God for surprises, part II
This is a Part II to this post.
So there I was a few weeks ago, moping around the house, nauseated and exhausted, thinking: How could it possibly be a good thing to have a baby right now? Is it not a bit of a stretch to say that “it must be God’s plan” when the circumstances are so very far from ideal?
I had so many plans for this upcoming year, none of which involved another high risk pregnancy and having a newborn in March. In my grudging, grumbling prayers, I asked for some peace about it. I didn’t receive anything that seemed like a direct answer — no voice of God or chorus of angels giving me explicit directions — but I kept feeling drawn to think about the following two stories:
Story #1:
Just before graduation my senior year in high school there was a rumor that one of the popular couples was unexpectedly pregnant. Jason and Michele were part of the “artsy” crowd, always going to hip parties and listening to cutting-edge bands that the rest of us had never heard of. Perhaps because they were so cool and seemed destined for a life of travel to exotic places and rubbing elbows with musicians and artists, it was just assumed that they’d have it “taken care of.”
We were all shocked when they announced that they would get married and have the baby. What a mistake! They were throwing their lives away! Just think of these poor schmuks sitting home, a baby spitting up on them while the rest of us were out living the post-graduation high life by…uhh…hanging out with friends and, umm, occasionally going to some parties where they had some wine coolers. (Well, that made it sound lame, but surely our forthcoming lives of freedom would actually be very exciting and cool.)
Anyway, a few years later I ran into a friend of Jason’s who showed me a wallet photo of their family. They’d had another kid by now, and I had to admit that their children were just adorable. The friend reported that Jason was a great father who adored his kids. I still thought it was a shame, though. Yes, the kids were great; it was just the timing that was sad. If they had just waited a decade or so, had their twenties to live a life of freedom, then they could have had their kids and it would all be perfect. I had it all figured out.
A couple weeks ago, as I was lamenting the poor timing of my own latest pregnancy, a friend called to say that she had news about Jason. I was pretty sure it was that he’d gotten famous, that she was going to tell me to turn on MTV to see his new band or tell me that some art exhibit featuring his work was about to open.
Instead, she told me that he died. He was killed in a freak accident a few years ago, when he was 28.
The second story is about another couple I know. When they got married they decided not to have children. Ten years into their marriage, they were finally living the live they’d dreamed of: the husband had recently graduated from college (late because of his time in Special Forces in the army) and had a good job as an engineer. The wife had graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in math and had a promising career that started as a mathematician for the Naval Weapons Research Laboratory. They’d recently moved to Florida, bought a little plane, and would frequently take spontaneous trips to nearby islands with friends, sleeping on the runway by the plane when they’d used all their money for gas.
Just as all of these freewheeling, child-free good times were getting started, they found out they were pregnant. It was unbelievable. It wasn’t even their “fault” — they’d been using a reliable form of contraception. Nothing could have been more unexpected.
Though they were not theoretically opposed to abortion, they didn’t hesitate to keep the child. Unsure of what this new future would mean for them, what it would be like to embark on a radically different life that wasn’t of their choosing, they changed their lives 180 degrees to be parents. The wife left her career to stay home, and the husband threw himself into being a dad. They never had any more children, but ended up being wonderful parents who delighted in raising their one child.
This story is about my parents. The unexpected baby who derailed all their life plans was me.
When I have tried to pray about my stress about this extremely surprising pregnancy, I keep feeling drawn to think about these two stories.
The news of Jason’s death was a shocking reminder that none of us have a crystal ball. It startled me into realizing that my view of the situation was ridiculously limited: If Jason and Michele had carefully planned their children on the schedule that seemed best to me and everyone else, Jason would have never known the joys of fatherhood, his two beautiful children would have never existed. And just as I was sure that their pregnancy was “obviously” “bad timing,” I had decided that my own new pregnancy was “obviously” “bad timing.” The problem, then as now, is that I do not have psychic powers; God has not chosen to share with me what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone next month or next year or 100 years from now. I can guess what the future might hold, but it would be just that: a guess. Hearing the news of Jason’s death was a wakeup call that I need to never forget that all my big plans for the future are ultimately founded on guesses.
And the story of my own unexpected existence was a reminder that God has a plan for every person’s life, even those who arrive in less than ideal circumstances. I hate to admit this, but under the physical and metal duress of a surprise pregnancy it’s been easy for me to think of this new little life as “the problem,” a set of financial and medical challenges to deal with. Yet when I think of my own story, it’s easy to see that, as with every other human being, God loves me, he has a plan for my life, and he’s glad I’m here — and I too was once “the problem.” God already has a plan for this little boy or girl’s life, even if it wasn’t originally in my plan.
As I ponder these two stories, being drawn to them again and again as I pray, all I can say is: “Thank God for surprises.”
Thank God for surprises, part I
I can finally talk about something that’s been on my mind for a while: I found out I was pregnant a few weeks ago. Since we had just had three babies in three years, we definitely didn’t feel like this was the right time for baby #4. Honestly, I felt like I’d checked the “surprise pregnancy” box last year — we rose to that challenge, learned more about NFP after our conversion, and now we wouldn’t ever be in that situation again. Whew!
When I saw the two pink lines, I thought I might pass out. I didn’t want to mention it on the blog since I hadn’t told family yet and, honestly, that’s probably a good thing. There would have been a lot of whining. Probably more than one post titled “I’M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO THIS!!!!”, maybe a couple called “Morning sickness…AGAIN.”
This has been a factor in the recent spiritual dry spell. The unlikeliness of the circumstances that had to play out for this baby’s existence made it an obvious candidate for the take that “it must have been God’s plan!” But constantly nauseated, my energy level suddenly slashed in half, I was pretty cynical about that notion. Of course I recognized that this new little son or daughter is a great gift and immense blessing…but the timing I wasn’t so sure about. I already have three children, and my oldest is only three. We’re still paying off medical bills from our last baby. Because of my history of DVT and the clotting disorder, my veins really need a break. Speaking of which, I don’t look forward to the daily anticoagulation shots in the stomach and the semi-weekly hematologist visits. I was just getting started with finally losing weight. And, umm, I was kind of trying to write a book here.
How could it possibly be a good thing to have a baby right now? Is it not a bit of a stretch to say that “it must be God’s plan” when the circumstances are so very far from ideal?
That’s what I’ve been thinking about and praying about a lot these past few weeks. Just over the past few days, I keep feeling drawn to two stories over and over again that have given me a lot of peace and resolution on the issue. I’ll share them in part two of this post. In the meantime, despite my worries I am truly happy to announce our fourth little blessing, and would appreciate prayers for our growing family.
It’s nothing personal
I came across something in Food and Wine this weekend that reminded me of the topics I was talking about over at America. The fabulous Joel Stein wrote a piece about hitting the L.A. nightlife scene with some of America’s top chefs. He writes of the following exchange at one of their stops:
At one point, [Chef Jon Shook] disappears from the table and returns with a smiley, dark-haired woman draped over his arm…Cooking, I realize, is much more useful for meeting women than writing for magazines. “You can make them any breakfast they want,” says Shook. “Eggs Benedict? No problem. Toad-in-the-hole? I can do it.” But they explain that there’s an art to he slow tease; you can’t cook breakfast for a woman too early in the relationship. “She’ll say, ‘But I just slept with you.’ Sure, but cooking is personal. You have to hold something back,” says [restaurant owner Sang Yoon].
I’m sure Yoon said that last line somewhat jokingly. But the fact is, in modern secular culture, it would not be that uncommon to consider cooking for someone more personal than sleeping with them.
This exchange in Food and Wine reminds me of a startling conversation I had years ago with a coworker named Jim*. Our department went out for a business lunch, and when we were tired of talking about the minutiae of our jobs we started talking about our lives outside of work. Somehow it came up that Jim was stressed out about some legal matters involving a son.
A son?! Jim was the consummate bachelor, known for his free-wheeling single lifestyle. We had no idea that he had a child. “I’ve never met him,” he said, wiping his forehead. “I guess he’s about nine. I’m not really sure.”
He went on to explain that when he was on a consulting project in Chicago he’d gone out with the guys after work, met a beautiful woman, and “got lucky.” He’d taken the necessary precautions. It was just a one night stand, over and done with. They kept in touch a little bit over the next few weeks while he was in town, but then fell out of contact. At some point later, he was shocked to find out that she had a child, and it was his. This was evidently confirmed through testing.
“I just don’t know how it could be possible,” he said, wondering how on earth the protection could have failed since he was so careful about that kind of thing.
We asked him if he ever planned to meet the kid. He didn’t know. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He said all he knew about the boy was that he really liked Cub Scouts and was a good student. He’d never seen a picture.
Clearly, my coworker was seriously in the wrong by not accepting his role as father. He was actually a really nice guy, so it was surprising that he hadn’t done the right thing in this situation. I don’t remember what our reaction was, but I hope that my coworkers and I strongly encouraged him to get in touch with his son. What’s striking to me now, though, is how absolutely shocking the situation seemed to him. He was just having some light fun, passing a soon-to-be-forgotten evening with a girl he met at a bar. This was the liberated high life promised to him by our MTV culture, he was just enjoying the glory of consequence-free sex. When he and the girl went back to his hotel that evening, they weren’t thinking about car seats and cribs and diaper bags — why would they think about babies, after all, when they had sex on their minds?
I imagine a little boy, perhaps sitting in a third grade classroom as we had that conversation at lunch that day. I bet he wondered about his dad a lot. I bet there were some awkward moments at Cub Scout events when other boys’ dads showed up. It’s disturbing that we live in a world where nice, normal, educated people can fall into having that much of a mental disconnect between human sexuality and the creation of human beings. The result is children who have moms and dads who hardly know each other, in the unlikely event that they make it into the world at all. It’s a disastrous situation when large segments of a society believe that the act that creates human beings, to paraphrase Yoon from above, is nothing personal.
* Some identifying details have been changed.
A summary of the America Magazine liveblogging
Well, that was exhausting. By the end of the second day of liveblogging yesterday I felt like my brain was about to melt. It was fun, but not exactly the easiest thing I’ve ever done to discuss heavy, controversial issues with almost no time to prepare my answers.
Since the frequent updates led to a jumble of long posts, here’s a summary with direct links to everything that was discussed:
- Reaction of friends: I discuss how my friends and family reacted to both my conversion to Catholicism and my conversion to being pro-life.
- Religious background: I briefly discussed my experiences with religion growing up.
- Pregnancy in difficult circumstances: I offered some thoughts on abortion in the case of seriously circumstances such as poverty.
- Catholic teaching on contraception: I tried to clarify some of the things I didn’t make clear in my original article about what exactly Catholics believe about contraception, and responded to a Catholic lady who vehemently disagrees with this teaching.
- A pro-choice critic: I responded to a pro-choice woman who was not a fan of my article, to say the least.
- The pro-life movement: I responded to some comments about the pro-life movement as a whole.
- Arguing the pro-life position from a secular perspective: I offered some thoughts on talking about abortion from a nonreligious perspective.
Whew! That was a LOT of typing for two day’s time. (Thanks once again to Mrs. Darwin’s babysitting services.) If anyone needs me, I will be doing something that requires absolutely no brainpower at all. Anything good on TV tonight?