Lenten Questions

Every year as Lent approaches,  I promise myself I'm going to make "this" Lent a time of faith and spiritual reflection for me and hopefully my family.  Every year, Easter comes so quickly, and I realize we (I) haven't done anything I was hoping to do.  This year has been no different.  Last night, something changed for me and I hope it continues.

I was standing outside the classroom in the Catholic school, waiting to pick the boys up from CCD.  I was looking around at all the children's artwork lining the hall and glanced down at a table.  On the table, there was a Lenten Reflections booklet.  I picked it up and opened it.  What was the very first passage I read:

Start where you are and follow where it leads you.

I'm going to do just that.  Start today.   There may only be about 3 weeks left in this Lenten season, but I'm going to make the best of what's left of that time.  I'm going to try my best to post daily (ok that may be stretching it - but often) the reflection quote from the booklet and give my thoughts about it.

Here it goes:

 I pray to move with intention past my own sense of importance and control, past my ideas about life, into the Spirit's presence.

This devotion really hit home with me.  Through the years, I have posted about our infertility and our feelings of loss of control.  Then God does what He does best.  He smacks me upside the head during Mass with a passage about His divine plan - not ours - that I never had control in the first place.  I still laugh about Mark and I just a few months ago.  We held on to all those baby things for 3 long agonizing years.  Struggling physically and emotionally to have another child - enduring 4 more heartbreaking IVF failures and the devastating loss of a pregnancy.  Then one day, we decided enough was enough.  I told Mark I was not only packing away all the baby items, but it was all leaving the house.  We shed some tears as we packed away baby blankets, hats, little socks and onies, and the occasional pacifier found stuffed in a couch cushion.  Most where happy tears - filled with memories of the boys as infants and toddlers.  But yes, some were sad - filled with the reality of our infertility battle scars caused by so many losses along the way.

God said, "Come to me, and I will give you rest."  When the last box left the house......we let it go.  All the pain and burden of our infertility was gone.  We both felt lighter than we had in years.  We are the Mommy and Daddy to the most amazing children on the planet and that is/was enough.

Then God did what He does best.  A phone call on a random Tuesday.  "How would you like to be Mommy and Daddy again next summer?" 

This is where our infertility story ends......and our adoption journey begins.

We have learned that we must reach out to God with intention.  Not hoping He will hear our prayers, but knowing.