How God's Grace Surprises Us
I recently updated friends who had been praying for my extended family during a traumatic injury incident. I shared news of a “miraculous” recovery, one for which a trauma nurse said there “is no medical explanation.” One reply I received was from a dear Dominican Sister, “May I share (the news) with others I asked to pray…?” As I replied to tell her that this is the sort of news we should always share, it struck me how often I am surprised by Grace. It is ironic: I believe in God’s love and His desire to act in my life, but my surprise at answered prayers betrays a bit of doubt. I think I often pray out of a sense of desperation rather than hope, and I suspect I’m not alone in this.
As I wrote my friend, I noticed a picture that sits atop a bookcase in my office. It was taken at the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Krakow, Poland; in it, my pregnant wife and I are kneeling below the iconic image of Divine Mercy. This picture was taken, unbeknownst to us, by one of our World Youth Day pilgrims who recorded this moment--a picture of answered prayer.
My wife and I married late in life (I was 42, and I may not have a wife if I disclosed her age here), but we both deeply desired children. After five years and a heart-wrenching miscarriage, doctors told us we had less than a one-percent chance of conceiving naturally; and if we did conceive, the odds of a baby coming to term were poor. Since the only techniques that might artificially address our infertility (like in vitro fertilization) are always violations of Church teaching, we began to mourn the children we so desperately wanted.
My “prayers” during this time were not always holy. I often told God I found this cruel: I had spent the years when I could best father a child in seminary; and now that I had found the woman with whom I wanted to spend my life, my body was betraying me. I told Him it was an injustice that, in a world where so many mothers use drugs or abort their children, my wife, who would sacrifice all that she had or was for the life of her child, should never know the joy of motherhood. My “prayers” were angry and desperate, and they obviously issued from a belief that our hopes had been firmly and finally dashed.
Yet, despite my desperate and doubtful prayers, I have that Krakow picture of God’s reply. I also have a daily reminder of God’s faithfulness – my daughter Lucia, who was nestled safely within her mother as we prayed that day in Poland.
Why did I doubt that God, who placed the desires on our hearts for children, would choose to do anything but fulfill them? I know many friends who struggle with similar issues, some who have turned their infertility into great fruitfulness through adoption or fostering, and none of them feel that God failed to answer prayer. Yet so often we forget these pictures of Grace: The reality that prayer is a dialogue with a God who wants to bless us with those good things for which we ask.
Today I share a picture with you in hopes it provides encouragement. Let’s strive to pray in hope. And when God grants our prayers, let’s please not fail to share that Grace with others, it may be the picture of hope that sustains them as they await God’s sure answer.
