Be Still, Girl, Chill.

I’m not one of those people who pushes my beliefs or religion on other people. In all honesty, I rarely even talk about my religion. Emily Post says not to, so I try to keep things to myself. It’s rare that I even talk about politics because of that as well. However, for this post, I’m going to talk a little about how infertility brought me and my husband back to church. We were spiritual people, but we hadn’t made many efforts to find a church home since we were married. My husband hadn’t gone to church in quite a while. I had never really had a church home growing up. I went with friends often, but I didn’t have a home church.

In the midst of all of the pain we were going through, we decided to try a church because it reminded me of the one, I visited the most at home. Also, it was beautiful, and I wanted to go inside. I felt a pull to that church because I was judging that book by it’s cover, which by the way, I often do, and it hasn’t really let me down just yet. Luckily for us, this church hasn’t either. This church happens to be how I found my support group. The girls who get me through the pain of grief each and every month. Our church doesn’t forget about the pain of infertility. They mention infertility often. They even had a wonderful sermon on it here.

We started going on Christmas Eve. I remember the sermon very well because that’s when I became a fan-girl for the female pastor at my church. I related so much with her, but it wasn’t until the second week that I really felt like this was my church home. The second week we were there, Jon and I had already been going through treatments. We were two years deep into the darkness that is infertility. At church, we were going through different words in our series, and the word for the week was “still.” As in, “be still.” You see, when you go through infertility, people give you unwanted advice and the biggest one you get is “relax, it’ll happen.” Somehow, with one phrase people turn something that’s completely out of your control into it being completely within your control.  They don’t know that by uttering something like that it makes something that isn’t your fault, all your fault. So, there I was, being so type A, trying to make a to do list on how to relax: 

1.      Meditate

2.      Yoga

3.      Pray

4.      Dance

5.      Acupuncture

6.      Breathe

7.      Journal Writing

8.      Repeat the next day…

Our pastor is talking about getting a planner for the new year. I order mine in November to get the best discount and it’s probably one of my favorite “office supplies” of the year to order and I LOVE office supplies. She talks about pens and stickers and about how this planner is going to make her so productive. The entire time, I’m like YAS, GIRL! GET THAT PLANNER. GET THOSE STICKERS. PENS? YAS- GET THOSE PENS! Le Pen? – C’est bon!  

She describes this planner/bullet journal and how it holds so much promise. Then she learns how all these people are going completely overboard with bullet journaling. Now, this would be me. She describes how, in order to be organize she’s going to have to become an artist, but she bought all the things she needed to help her get where she wants to be: the perfect bullet journaler. She started a huge plan to go with the bullet journal.  She talks about how the planner ended up being just another thing that she had to complete each day, and how that overwhelmed her. How sometimes we get lost in our to-do lists, in the urgency, in the now. How prayer becomes just something on our to do lists. In the middle of chaos and pain, we’re still needing that quiet with all of the things being thrown at us. 

She ties all this together with the verse “Be still and know that I am God.” Being quiet, and still, and connecting with God because God is there to bear our burdens. “Keep showing up even when you have doubts.” Although, she’s focused on our relationship with God, this spoke to me because that’s what infertility does, you have doubts that God will ever answer your prayers, but you keep trying and keep hope that he will still provide. That even if you don’t complete that checklist, he’s there.  I know there are tons of interpretations as to what this means, but the way my pastor described it, was almost like God was saying “Girl, chill, I’ve got this.” Wait, I don’t have to make these to do lists? This isn’t my fault? This isn’t something God has done to me to teach me a lesson? 

I don't say all of this, to push anyone back to church or to even push someone going through infertility to religion. I say this because infertility is isolating and painful. There are so many things that it does to tear you to pieces, but the hardest part for me? It's that I can't control it no matter how hard I try. That's my struggle, and I imagine, there's other people out there who struggle with it too. Each time a cycle fails, I would sit and think about what I did to cause this. What I didn't do.I kept adding things to do on my to-do list hoping that this next combination was key.  

I realized in one day sitting in church, that the hardest part of infertility was my lack of control over what was happening. That it wasn’t one of the circumstances where I had to go through and make a to do list, check all the marks and then I’d be magically pregnant. It didn’t matter if didn’t drink the pomegranate juice every night, take all the vitamins each day, eat the entire pineapple core in 5 days, meditate, go to acupuncture, avoid overly stressful situations during ovulation and the two weeks after, put my legs up in the air, go to yoga, eat walnuts, broccoli, avoid sugar, avoid alcohol, prayed each morning, kept my heart rate under 150 during cardio, did extra cardio to get good blood flow, avoid too much exercise, practice yoga so I was relaxed, avoid twisty poses in yoga, avoid hot yoga, avoid nail polish, avoid plastic, avoid vinyl, don’t get a fever during ovulation, avoid hot baths, send good vibes to everyone I came into contact with, and avoid negative thoughts. It wasn’t in my control. It wasn’t a checklist. It’s not in my control. I’m not failing my future child. I’m not failing my husband. I may feel like my body is failing me, but I’m not failing. It’s not me.

Girl, chill. I’ve got this. Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10