Dark Days

I do not cope well with disappointment. This is something I get to realize every month. People ask me how I'm doing. Most days, thankfully, the answer is "good." Even occasionally"great." God is good to me.

This week, though, we've had a few doozies. Suffice it to say that I discovered, for the 17th month in a row, that I am still not pregnant. And no matter how strongly I try to convince myself that I know I'm not, just couldn't be, pregnant..... well... I continue to be crushed to find out it's true. The tricks my body plays on me just seem cruel - the thousand little feelings and twinges that all lead to a big "What if???" only to be quickly followed by an even bigger "NO WAY."

And the dark days come. Unbidden. And the questions and doubts start:
What am I being punished for?
How can I take this any longer?
What should we do now?
It's because I would be a bad mom.
It's because I became a doctor.
What is wrong with me?
We're never going to have children.
Why is she pregnant and not me?
What have I done wrong?
Where are you?
What is your purpose?

Thursday I stood during my postcall morning (I didn't have anywhere else I needed to be) on the roof of the hospital and watched the sunrise. (Another seemingly cruel circumstance that conspired with everything else to make these dark days a little darker was the fact that I was on OB call that day.) I stood there, in the freezing cold, taking photo after photo of this huge ball of flame slipping slowly above the horizon, changing the dark blue sky to orange.

And I thought of the passage in Job where God answers Job's questions with more questions:
Where were you.....? And watching this amazing, every day happening, I thought to myself that he should have asked Job where he was when the sun rose every morning. Of course, it turns out, he did.

"Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?

Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!

Job 38:12, 13, 19-21

And I guess standing there, it was no longer a story about Job. It was about me. And God answering me out of the whirlwind. I have no more answers than I did before. I'm still sad, and frustrated, and let down, and perplexed, and even a little angry.

But it's good to know he's here in the whirlwind with me.