The Great Plan

Seems like everyone believes there is some plan for my life. Either that God has a plan for me or that they hold this belief that things will “work out.” I don’t know what to believe right now, but I do know this—if this is all part of some great plan, I hate this plan.

It feels a bit sacrilegious to say that I hate God’s plan for me. Maybe someday, I’ll be able to see things more clearly, but right now, I can’t. It’s hard for me to believe that God’s plan for me involves so much pain. I know that part of having faith is believing in a greater plan—that while things might not work out the way we want them to, God is wiser and knows what we need more than we do. I just can’t understand how what I’m going through represents any “God knows best” knowledge. How can this pain represent something that I don’t know that I need?

Then there are the “it will work out” comments. I know that they come from a good place—people want to make me feel better and feel like they are helping. But, we really don’t know that things will work out, do we? No one knows what the future holds. And if there are any people out there who can see the future, and can tell me with confidence that things will work out, I really wish you’d warned me about what was going to happen with Vivienne.

It’s becoming harder and harder for me to respond to the “it will work out comments.” Sometimes, I wonder what that even means. Most of the time, it means that people are trying to tell me that I’ll have another baby. I usually respond with “we’ll see,” which is not the optimistic and hopeful response that people want. But the harsh fact is that I don’t know if I’ll have another baby. I actually have very little control over that outcome.

I need to be honest about why these comments are so hard for me. Very few people know about this, but if I’m going to share on this blog, then I have to be honest. We’ve been pregnant since we lost Vivienne, and miscarried. Twice. Both losses were early and devastating. Each loss makes the hope a little harder to find. And when people keep telling me that things will work out, and I’ll have another baby, the forced smile gets harder and harder to plaster on.

I try to be hopeful and believe that there is a purpose to everything that is happening to us, but with each blow, that gets harder and harder to do. I do hope that someday, I can look back at this time and realize these horrible moments got me to the place I am supposed to be. But, I also recognize that there is nothing that can happen in my life that will make losing Vivienne an acceptable sacrifice. While hindsight might give me the gift of some perspective about everything, I’d still rather have my daughter alive and with me. And I don’t think that will ever change.