Learning and Growing: A very personal post

Posted by admin on September 23, 2011

Lately, I’ve been in a kind of slump. I am dissatisfied with the way my life seems to be going and instead of using this as a growing and maturing experience, I’ve turned into a petulant child. I am so thankful that God is merciful and patient.

Yesterday, I started reading The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. I picked it up because I thought, “I am suffering and no one else can know how I’m feeling. I am alone and I feel like nothing will make me happy.” (See, petulant child!) I’ve only read the first four chapters so far but it has really made me think.

We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied with until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the “intolerable compliment”. Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life- the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child- he will take endless trouble- and would, doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scrapped and recommenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but we are wishing not for more love but for less.

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, pg.34, 35

My unhappiness has come from the frustration of infertility. I have wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember. My husband and I have been trying to start a family for a couple of years now. I recently finished an entire year of fertility treatments with no positive results. I have hoped and planned and been painfully let down with each new cycle. I am surrounded by everyone else’s good news of new babies and am left with emptiness. I have prayed for God to give me patience. I know that He is in control and has a plan for our life together, but I seem to have grown more impatient and bitter. I have not truly laid this burden down at the feet of Jesus.

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Romans 5:3-4 NIV

I realize that the suffering Paul was writing about is a little more substantial than my not having a baby when I want to, but this verse gives me comfort in that I am learning to persevere, gaining character and resting on hope. Just as Lewis said the artist goes through and gives endless trouble to the picture that he loves, I believe the Lord has given me this time to see my lack of faith, to learn to lean on Him, and ultimately become more like Christ. The hardships we face in life refine us and cause the dirt of this mortal life to fall away “so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.” Philippians 2:15 NIV

 

And He’s brought me to the wilderness

where I will learn to sing

And He lets me know my barrenness

so I will learn to lean

Beautiful Mercy by Laura Hackett