Let's Shake On It

I'm extending my hand to make peace with this affliction. I feel like I need to recite the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

What a genius of a man to have figured out that we will only approximate "reasonable" happiness in this lifetime. And yet our expectations are just the opposite. We want and ask for the reverse. We want this to be the good life...and well...praising God for eternity (can you hear the teens yawning?)...that will be the runner up after a life well-lived. Poor God. He crafted our inner soul, knitted us in our mother's womb, gave us each day our daily bread, and all we can muster is gritted teeth and bitter, mumbled prayers at our climate controlled church on Sunday after spending the morning watching Meet the Press on cable TV with our $5 cups of gourmet coffee. Our Abba Father must feel like he's parenting a bunch of tweens, wondering, "Where did my delightful, loving children go?"

I'm no better. The Sunday before I found out we were pregnant, I couldn't even sing the praise songs in morning worship. My lips fell apart, but no words came out. I was crest-fallen because a pregnancy test came back negative. Looking back, I sort of wish it was--that that Sunday of throwing a temper tantrum before the Lord would have been the beginning and the end of a very bad week. But life didn't work that way, and I'm knocking on Acceptance's door.

I was at the hospital today getting another beta hcg to make sure my levels are coming down. We won't know the results until tomorrow, and tonight my stomach sits in agony at the stress of whether or not things are progressing well. Every cramp, twinge, stabbing pain, back ache, dizziness, nausea and headache allude to some impending doom that never comes, but torments me the same. So, tonight, I've decided I'm coming to terms with my cornual pregnancy, asking God that He resolve the pregnancy, but not my life, that He protect me whether I'm near or far from emergent care. I surrender my expectation that life will bring me overwhelming happiness, but I ask for what He can give, which is peace, purpose and protection.

Let's shake on it.