Pity party

Today was a rocky day. I started feeling sorry for myself shortly after getting out of bed.

It doesn't take much to set me off when I'm already headed in that direction - an email from a friend, a commercial on t.v, Internet news stories about celebrity pregnancies. You know how it is - individually they're not a big deal but sometimes it feels like they all come at once, and then I'm toppled over. By late morning, after watching a little t.v. and checking email, my thoughts were already filled with self-pity questions like, Why can't I get pregnant? Why don't I feel called to adopt? Why is this happening to ME?

I don't want to feel like this. I hate it, actually. I want nothing more than to live my life not caring that I can't get pregnant. Okay, maybe that's not true - I do want something more, but you know what I mean. It's just that if I can't have that, I at least want to not care.

By tonight, though, I started feeling much better. I'd like to think it was prayer. I sure as heck didn't do anything to help my cause; if it were up to me I would still be wallowing in sadness. Good moods and bad moods just wash over me and I often feel as if I have very little control. It's one thing to be in a depressed mood for months, but I think bad days are normal and are to be expected with infertility. Thankfully, I'm in a good place again now.

I did feel compelled to become angry with God this afternoon while I was sad, but I rejected it and the urge to blame Him was gone shortly thereafter. I don't think that was a coincidence. I always say that from my experience if you meet God half way, He'll meet you half way (deep, I know). I'm fully aware that He's also been known to pluck people out of the gutter with no help from them, and I'm not saying we can earn His help, but I just think He likes it when we display some faith. Why would He help us if we are cursing Him or wallowing in self-pity? He wants us to trust Him - it's all through the Bible, especially the New Testament. Jesus likes it when we believe in His father.

Anyways, it's been the answer so far for me. I spent over three years just stomping my feet, pounding my fists and telling God to help me. I couldn't understand why He wasn't! I knew He was helping other people; I heard their stories and testimonies. I knew God helped people who were down and out, like me! But nothing. Did He not love me?

You know when you were a kid and would throw an all-out temper tantrum? Well, maybe you didn't, but I threw many a fit. There were many times when I wanted my way and would cry and yell to get it. Was that helping my cause? Of course not. But I honestly thought that the louder I yelled, the better my chances were that my parents would march up those stair, swing open my door and declare, "You are screaming so loud that now we'll listen to you. You want to go to your friends house on a school night? Well, because you cried and carried on so dramatically, of course you can go!"

In the end, the only result of my tantrum was a headache. I'd always calm down (usually out of sheer exhaustion and having no other choice), say I was sorry, and only then did the situation even have a chance of improving.

It doesn't take a genius to know that throwing a fit isn't going to get you what you want, and you definitely didn't need me to tell you that. But for some reason, when you're in the middle of it we think it's our only option. That's what happened to me, until it became so obvious that all it did was exhaust me. So I calmed down, apologized to God and saw that there was another way. I'm always going to have bad days. Today was encouraging, though, because, by the grace of God, I managed it. I talked myself through it, rejected the bad thoughts and, sure enough, it got better. That's something we all need to remember - it will always get better.