Labels

So, this trip thru infertility land has brought me closer to God and His plans for us.  Well, not closer to His plans, per se, but to having a fuller appreciation to how awesome God is and that I just need to shut up and trust Him with His plans.  He knows best, after all. 

I/We got labelled infertile.  Admittedly, that label falls hardest on the woman because somehow it is assumed that we are magical creature who can just wish a baby into existence, right?  It's all on our shoulders because it all happens inside of us.  I didn't realize that I, too, held that thought until I came slamming into it during our passage thru the desert (Somebody please read "The Dream Giver" by Bruce Wilkinson).  The hubby didn't get the sad eyes and heart breaking attempts to comfort him the way I did.  Men don't really relate to one another like that.  I'm sure on his end he feels like he got the whole, "aren't man enough, eh??" but that can be refuted by sit ups and pull ups and blood work that says your hormones are fine and so are your sperm.  Since the mixing goes on within the woman, I'm not only responsible for having healthy eggs and open tubes, but of having a hospitable growing area and a healthy enough body to carry the baby.  Maybe we are magical creatures =) (that one is for you Andie and Miriam).

So, it was odd that I felt the weight of this label.  It felt heavy and as if I was wearing a backpacking pack to go swimming.  It didn't fit and it was uncomfortable and I tried to shift it around so that I could fit into the conceptions of those around me.  I'm not going to call them misconceptions because that really goes too far.  We all have our own thoughts and feelings and if I'm going to write what I'm about to write then I need to make sure I'm in line with my own thoughts.  They aren't misconceptions, they are the views of those people who have either never experienced not being able to get pregnant or maintaining a pregnancy.  That is the path that God put them on and it comes with it's own ups and down. 

I have a history with labels.  Not a pleasant one.  I understand the usefullness of labels and for that purpose alone I don't have a problem with it.  It's when we use those labels to attempt to impose our views onto someone else that it becomes a problem.  What I'm learning right now is to not accept those attempts to impose a view on me.  Just because someone sees me as something doesn't mean I have to embrace that or reject that.  That is their view and what they do with that is their business.  I'm a people pleaser so this is hard for me to not react to these things.  Some people impose on purpose.  Who knows why, exactly, but maybe it makes life easier for them when they can pigeon hole someone.  They feel like they know all about you now and you aren't a mystery to them.   Some people impose without meaning to.  It may be a defense mechanism from some horror they experienced in a different lifetime.  I have labels for people but I try to use them only for my benefit and not for some kind of imposition.  I grew up in a chaotic home and so it was good to know who felt safe and who didn't.  As I grew older I could put information together from people I had labelled the same to see if I was right about the next person.  It's amazing how easily those of us who were not treated very well in childhood can tend to find each other in large groups.  It's always a good thing to be able to know who became victims, aggressors or survivors. 

Anyways, infertile.  As I've said before, I'm more than my uterus or my ability to get pregnant.  That does not define me and I have never felt like it did.  Others have, but I haven't.  It's why I cringe when someone wishes me a "Happy Mother's Day" because they feel sorry for me.  They assume that I carry a shame or an incapacitating sorrow and I need to be comforted.  They are trying to be nice so I have to meet them where they are trying to meet me.  That's biblical and I do ok with that.  Being infertile is a diagnosis and some kind of attempt to explain why what comes so easily to others didn't for us.  For it to be more than that is giving it way too much power.  It is one of many paths that God has placed us on. 

The funny thing is that God has put a lot of old ideas to the test with this lesson.  I feel like God is charging me with the task of opening eyes to the damage labels CAN bring.  They don't always, but they can.  They can also limit our thinking about our own lives.  How many people feel blessed to be labelled infertile?  Not many.  But when you move beyond that label?  how blessed can we feel?  should we feel?  This whole label thing ties back to God's instructions to love God and love my neighbor.  Whatever they have chosen to do with their lives is between them and God.  My job is to not let those choices prevent me from loving them.  It doesn't mean I have to put myself into dangerous situations to prove I'm doing what God wants me to do.  It means I have to show God's love and mercy and grace to ALL of God's creation.  I can believe that your choice is a sin but I'm still supposed to love you.  I may have to protect myself from you but it means I need to have God's heart for you and pray for your suffering.  Not that you would suffer, but because the idea is that you hurt me because you, yourself, are hurting.  Stay with me on this!

I can give an awesome example:  my 1st stepfather is someone I would label a monster.  He hated women.  Pure and simple and I really struggled with this because he made it his personal agenda to humiliate those of us in the house.  I, personally, think that he was embarrassed that I was probably smarter than him by the time I was 5.  That's a personal guess, tho.  Maybe a label.  Anyways, I grew to feel so very justified in labelling him a monster.  To the point that I had a hatred of him in my heart.  A blackness that would overshadow the real me if I thought about him for even a moment too long, one memory too many.  Then, when I was in my mid-20s God lead me to call over to his house to speak to my kid brother (his child).  That was all God because my kid brother and I hardly speak to each other.  A female answers the phone and immediately I am between a 5yr old and an adult.  I recognize the voice that I haven't heard in 20yrs.  It was my former stepfather's mother.  We chatted for a few minutes.  In those few minutes she managed to let me know, very clearly, just how little she thought of boys.  My heart sank.  She has 4 sons, to include the monster from my childhood.  God was gracious enough to let me see where his pain was coming from in order to heal my pain.  Does that mean I would want him around me or my family?  Absolutely not!  Does that mean I have stopped calling him a monster?  Nope.  But it does mean that I have a deeper understanding of why he was the person he was and that gives me a fuller view of him.  He isn't JUST a monster.  He's a little boy who never measured up to his mother.  He's got some kind of twisted view of woman that they must be perfect and when we weren't?  We paid a price.  The other side of that is when I was younger and I thought, "this guy is a monster" it was this stepfather that I could compare him to and if the shoe fit?  *waves* Buh-Bye!  I didn't restrict him by my label, I just wasn't going to expose myself to any toxic crap he may have had on him. 

As with all things, there are 2 sides and all things must be used in moderation.  Lets be open minded enough to see where others are coming from and try to meet them where they are trying to meet us.