Laughing at the Days to Come

A couple of months ago, in the midst of all the stress we are currently under in addition to the despair we still feel about infertility, I felt God telling me I need to focus my energies more on being a godly wife rather than on yearning for a child.  As we’ve tried to get pregnant over the past two years, I’ve noticed that my thoughts are almost always on babies–why won’t God allow us to have a baby?  Have I done something wrong?  Will God ever bless us with children?  Why did God give us the desire for a large family and then make having ONE child so difficult?  Etc., etc.  I used to constantly think about my husband, and the shift in the subject of my thoughts makes me realize that maybe I’m putting my mere desire to have a baby over my husband who is here with me NOW.  I’m thinking too much about becoming a mother when I already have the vocation of being a wife.  That’s where my focus should lie, because if we never have children, my husband will remain, and if we do end up with children, they will eventually leave us for their vocations and my husband will still remain.  The fact is we are a family–maybe a very small family of 2, but we are still a family despite the fact that we have no children at this time.  So, I’ve been praying a lot about how to be a more godly wife, and I’m doing my best to put it into action.

One way I’m seeking to grow in my vocation as wife is to continuously read and reflect on the wife portrayed in Proverbs 31.  Last night as I read over the passage before bed, my eyes kept stopping on verse 25:  “She is clothed with strength and dignity, and laughs at the days to come.”  I NEVER laugh at the days to come.  I am such a worrier, and my anxiety has really kicked into gear as we have had financial struggles these past 6 months.  Not to mention how negative I often feel (and speak aloud to my husband) about infertility.  I have very little hope left that we will ever have children, but I need to learn to embrace my role as a wife, because that role is just as important, if not more important, than the role of mother.  I must strive to be more optimistic about our future, and I feel that will only be possible with the strength of the Holy Spirit in me, because in my eyes, our suffering has been so great that it’s hard for me to see a brighter future.  If my role as a wife is to help my husband get to heaven (1 Cor. 7:16), then I need to lose the negativity in my heart and stop complaining so much.

Maybe I’ll continue sharing what I learn from Sacred Scripture and other sources about becoming a more godly wife.  I’m sure this is an area that most of us could stand to improve in, and I think it’s important to strengthen our marriages when we are struggling with something as stressful as infertility (which often tears couples apart).  Do you have any books on the subject that you would recommend?  I’m really wanting to read For Women Only:  What you Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men by Shaunti Feldhahn and Holiness for Housewives:  and Other Working Women by Hubert van Zeller.