“For every look at self, take ten looks to Christ.” ~Robert Murray M’Cheyne
“So I gaze on You in the sanctuary to see Your strength and Your glory.” Psalm 63:2
“When I tried to understand all this, it seemed hopeless until I entered God’s sanctuary.” Psalm 73:16-17a
Yesterday I sat at my desk and wrote an article on resetting your mind when tough circumstances crowd your vision and whisper untruths about the goodness of God. I sent it off to an online magazine hoping it would be what they’re looking for in their call for submissions. A little piece of me went with it, words from my journal topping the page in all their gutted honesty.
The recurring theme of my walk with Christ these days is “Look Up.” I’ve written about this before, but as I continue my journey through the Psalms, I’m confronted with the harrowing dangers and soul crushing sorrows perpetually shared by the psalmists. Sometimes I can really identify and commiserate with their anxious confessions. In many of the psalms there is a noticeable shift, a firm movement away from what discourages and threatens and toward the resolute, unchanging character of God. Frequently, the psalmist bursts into praise for the steadfast love of the Lord and His limitless faithfulness—all this immediately on the heels of pouring out the fear, shame, pain, sorrow he is wrestling with. With each psalm I take apart during my early morning studies, it seems the Lord is whispering to me, “Look up.” I feel like I’m resetting my mind, like I’m creating a new mechanism I can default to when I can’t sleep at night, when anxious thoughts fight for center stage in my head, when sorrows roll over me like big, crashing waves.
Today I returned to my doctor for a follow-up visit regarding the mess that exists in my abdomen. The ultrasound tech asked me a few questions, and as usual, I felt the shift in the air when I answered, “No, I’ve never been pregnant” in a small voice. “Any nieces or nephews?” she asked in a lighter voice. “Oh yes, two. But I do have children. We adopted twice.” She brightened immediately, probably relieved, and we’re off talking about kids and school being out. She measures and takes notes, and finally remarks that the cysts are smaller, so maybe we won’t need surgery this time. I get dressed and wait for the doctor, and through the exam room walls I can hear the family that was seated next to me in the waiting room as they eagerly await the gender reveal of baby number 3. Their little girls have decided to name the baby Lucky if it’s a boy. The strong, quick heartbeat is louder than the voice of my doctor who’s standing right next to me, pointing out the laundry list of problems binding up my insides. We decided no surgery for now, but it’s probably going to be unavoidable in the near future. I’ve been around this block twice before.
I stopped for coffee afterward in an effort to tamp down the headache that was pulsing in my temples. Thankful for the 30 minute drive home, I wasn’t really surprised when tears made it hard to see the road. It’s not that I desperately want more children. I’m truly content with my two boys. And I know that without my long term relationship with infertility I wouldn’t have my kids. I’m happy with our family, and since 35 is showing up on my doorstep in about 10 days, I’m okay with wrapping up the last baby stage of our parenting.
But there’s always been a flicker of hope–even knowing how impossible it would be to grow a child inside my body–to experience pregnancy and birth. No matter how low I have felt about infertility, the little flame was always there, month after month, year after year. With each doctor visit I’ve had over the last year, the flicker has grown smaller every time. And in the last six weeks, I feel like someone’s dumped a bucket of water on it altogether. Extinguished for good. I tried to categorize my tears on the drive home, tried to label them and put them in a file I’m familiar with. Why sadness when I’m not really sad? I don’t know how to handle these feelings.
I watched a storm roll in across the flat countryside as I drove. Rain smudged the sky in the distance, and this is the one thing I’ve allowed myself to call beautiful about living in this swampy, flat region of Missouri: you can see for miles.
I remember the summer when I was 15 my parents took us on a road trip from Tennessee to Colorado. For two days we drove through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and finally Colorado. While in New Mexico we climbed Capulin Volcano and from the top you could see for miles and miles. It seemed the flattened landscape never ended. When we continued our trip through flat, endless desert, my dad pointed out an isolated rain storm in the distance. I’d never seen anything like it. “It’s raining out there,” he said. I asked him how he could tell. “The smear of gray, like smudged chalk from sky to ground—that’s rain falling from that dark cloud.” It was beautiful in a sad, lonesome way. But rain in the desert is a gift.
That 20 year old memory surfaced as the miles ticked down the interstate and the storm rolled in. Beauty in the charcoal sky while darker thoughts tumbled around in my head.
It’s not that I can’t have more children.
It’s that I don’t have a choice.
I listed all the ways I felt sad about this, all the things that make a woman…well, a woman—all foreign and unknown to me.
I need there to be purpose in the “no.”
I need there to be goodness in the absence.
I need to know that the Lord’s faithful love exists in His closure of my womb.
Nearly a decade ago, a friend collapsed to her knees in the room in my house where I now write every day. Upon learning that her husband had been unfaithful to her, she gasped the words between sobs, “Lord, don’t let this be for nothing! Don’t make me live this for no reason!” Though worlds apart in circumstances, I understand her prayer. I don’t want hard things to be purposeless. I want them to be used for good, to count for something.
“Look up,” the Lord says to me. Sometimes I can almost picture Him tilting my chin upwards and forcing me to hold His gaze. “Look up.” The words on the pages of my Bible are the focal point of that gaze, the resting place of my looking up. And I eventually stop listing the ways the world seems dark. Instead, I look up. I look at the Lord who is always faithful. I remember His past faithfulness and know that there is no safer place for me than in His hands, holding His gaze. There is no better way to accept my circumstances than to filter them through His wisdom and steadfast love. I have to look up, have to stop letting my story tell me who God is. I have to let Him tell me who He is, and to trust that His version of the story is a good one—the right one.
Head still pounding, I unlocked the back door of my house. The living room was in complete disarray, toys strewn about and furniture shifted to odd angles. My eldest hid in the corner, hoping to jump out and scare me. “Aw Mom, I thought you wouldn’t see me where I hided.” The youngest was happily pulling alphabet magnets off the fridge and pitching them across the kitchen floor. He looked up and grinned when he saw me, then started barreling toward me on all fours.
I’m trying to look up. Some days it’s harder than others. But at 5:45 tomorrow morning, I’ll quietly drag myself to my desk. I’ll flip open my Bible to the next page of Psalms.
And I’ll look up. And all will be well.
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.