I have two beautiful nieces and one terrifying nephew. They are all under six and all hail from the same womb. Said womb and womb mate couldn’t attend church one morning so Anna and I offered to take the kids to church for them. I ended up with Molly who is 20 months, the mathematicians among you may have noted that this left the wife with approximately one more child than me. It will be ok, I thought, we’ll only have them for 20 minutes then the older two will be in Junior Church, and I can skive in creche … or it could be a family service where everyone stays in.
With a little assistance from other parents and church members we coped, and about halfway through Molly threw her dolly to one side and settled into my neck for a bit of a snooze. It started with a wayward thought – I hope I have a girl – and that was it: a tidal wave of sadness, loss and self pity crashed in around my fragile heart and mind. As I barely stayed afloat in thoughts of ‘why me?’ and alike the church started clapping. While awake Molly loves clapping, joining in exuberantly at any opportunity. It turns out she is no different in her sleep, and as her open palms slapped my neck and arm respectively the dam broke and I began to weep for the child I don’t have.
In the preceding months I had become numb to the pain of infertility, of the severely decreased chance we have of conceiving without assistance. I was telling myself it was just one of those things and that God has a plan. That morning it wasn’t just one of those things, and God’s plan didn’t look perfect. But as we stood to sing the next song and I struggled with my thoughts, my guilt about having such thoughts and also trying to hide the fountain that had once been my face, I saw him. He had been in the youth group when I was heading it up. I thought he’d be a Christian forever, invincible to the lure of the world. But the world doesn’t always work out the way it does in our heads, and my friend drifted. I’d spent more time with him recently and really didn’t know where he was with everything. But as I looked at him that morning I saw that he was singing and it dawned on me that if I feel so strongly about the child I don’t yet and may never have, how does God feel about this lost son making his first tentative steps back home?

Luke 15v20 ‘So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.’

God feels for His children more. More than I can know, more than my puny words can describe. And he also feels it for me, his heart breaking in time with mine as I grieve my current infertility. I only saw my friend sing one line of the song before I turned away. But the line he sang was perfectly appropriate. A prodigal son singing about a sacrificed one:

“Thank you oh my Father for giving us Your Son.”

 
Previously published on Ebs and Flows …

You want to see me angry? Come and watch me play 5aside. It might not happen every week but come a few weeks in a row and sure enough the incredible sulk will appear. The source of my anger? Me. Although if you are participating you might think my childish strops are directed at others. Off the pitch I am entirely realistic about my footballing skills – I’m no slouch, but I’m not going to be signing any contracts soon. However on the pitch I seem blinded to my middling skills, I demand perfection from my every touch, pass and shot. And should I mess up? Well then I am my harshest critic, I cannot forgive myself for any lapse in my imagined footballing skill.
What is amplified on the 5aside pitch plays out more subtly in real life. In real life I find it equally hard to live under grace, but not because I demand perfection from my every move. In life I am far too aware of my faults and this makes it hard to believe I deserve any grace at all. And what does this refusal to live under grace say? It tells God that I basically believe his sacrifice to be worthless. If I don’t live in the freedom and grace that Jesus died to provide in essence I am mocking His death. I am doubting that God is good to His word, that He knows what He is doing.
When Moses was told God’s plan he also had some doubts. When Job suffered awful loss He also had some questions regarding God’s methods. What did God say to Moses? To Job? What does He say to me?
‘Who are you that you question my plans? Do you see the bigger picture or just your own small world? Man up and answer my questions! Did you make the lips or cause man to speak? Did you put the breath into his lungs? Did you call light out of the darkness and cause it to shine? Did you carve mountains from rock, and sweep valleys into existence? Where were you when I built the earth? Did you measure the sky? Can you sue God for malpractice? Can you make a claim that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. Why do you refuse to live in freedom? Why do you chain yourself to guilt and regret? Did you design life? Is this your better way of living? Aren’t you tired of trying so hard? Of judging others and being judged? Will you humble yourself and watch me? Learn from me? Come to me, learn how grace works, I will not force anything on you. I will not burden you with more than you can handle and I will never desert you. Can you say the same?’
(Cobbled together from Job 38 onwards, Exodus 3 & 4, and Matthew 11 with a liberal sprinkingly of my own paraphrasing!)
Previously published on Ebs and Flows …