Mary G Bruno

With a full belly, her head floated down to my shoulder as she drifted into sweet slumber for the night.  Her peaceful face just happened to tilt towards mine, which allowed me to gaze at what I soon realized to be a peace of heaven of earth.  Perfection.  Innocence.  And although being a mommy is not always so easy…yes, it really is!  I did not earn her.  There wasn’t something I did right to be able to call her my own, or something I did wrong to have waited, longer than most, for her.  She is just God’s plan, plain and simple.  She is our Guatemalan gift, and one of the many fruits of my suffering.

I stared at this perfect face, frozen with awe at her Master’s handiwork, and wanted it to teach me.  Now I am graced with the perspective of a parent, which will help me better grasp God’s feelings towards me as His child.  “Mary, my mother, join me now in a mother’s prayer that…my little child may instruct me in the ways of God…” (” ‘The Original’ Mother’s Manual ” by A. Francis Coomes, S.J.) My gaze at Bella is a mere fraction of God’s gaze at me, and this is hard to comprehend.  I thought: “But I am not so innocent!  I am not so lovely.  How can you love me so much?”  And He says, “You are Mine.”  She sort of had me in a temporary trance, and as I continued to enjoy her simple presence, nothing could steal my attention at this particular moment.  I thought: she could literally empty the contents of her stomach all over me right now, and I would not move.  God had graced me with this moment of truth.

We are His.  We just are.   We can’t do anything to make Him stop loving us.  And just as I will learn in the years to come with my own child, sometimes “loving” requires the lover to allow the “lovee” to suffer.  Even in great ways–because there is good we may not be able to see.  Although difficult in practice, it is easy for us to understand the concept when raising a child.  It is hard for us to see that when we suffer, we are the child.  The lover always brings a greater good out of the suffering!  Call it “struggling,” “depression,” “tiredness,” “hunger,” “unanswered prayer,” or by another name- we all suffer.  And so many suffer without hope!

Answered prayers come in so many different shapes and sizes.  It may match your desired shape and size, but it probably won’t.  Please, still hope.  Still know that He who is your lover can NOT disappoint you.  I am trying to grasp this as I continue to experience infertility.  Although having our Bella is the greatest gift I did not even know how to imagine for, and she does make us feel complete, she is not a cure for being barren.  It has helped, but the same things still cause us pain.  And even if we are blessed with a pregnancy one day, I will never want to forget this feeling.  In suffering, I feel closest to Jesus.  Although I rarely, if ever, “feel” it, I have to know that this. is. still. good.  As impossible as it “feels” for you to see it in your sadness, grief, impossibility, exhaustion, suffering, can you find the good?  It is there.  Will you find it?

“Mary, my mother, join me now in a mother’s prayer that…my little child may instruct me in the ways of God: that its innocent eyes may speak to me of the spotless holiness of Jesus; that its open smile may continually remind me of the great love God has for His creatures; that its helplessness may teach me the unbounded power of God; and that its feeble efforts to speak may tell me of God’s wisdom.  Pray with me now that its complete trust in me may lead me to a like confidence in God, and that its simple affection for me may bring me to a greater love for Him…” (” ‘The Original’ Mother’s Manual ” by A. Francis Coomes, S.J.)

Mary G Bruno