I am often seized with a desperate frustration that I'm called to do something and I'm not doing it. Usually, that frustration has to do with the fact that I live here in the U.S. when I want to be doing something for Africa, making a difference there instead of here.
This morning, I read Matthew chapter 1 (I'm reading it in Portuguese) and was struck by two things: 1) by Mary's desperate plight (unwed, pregnant) and 2) Joseph's belief.
For Mary, I wonder if she was at peace, sure that God would take care of her since he impregnated her, or whether she was fearful, wondering what would happen to her. My bet is that she was fearful, trying to calm herself down, hyperventilating, telling herself over and over that God would surely not let her starve to death since he got her into this predicament in the first place. She probably didn't calm down until Joseph agreed to marry her after all. This doesn't make Mary less in my eyes; it simply makes her more human, more like me, after all, more like all of us.
For Joseph, I'm struck by the fact that he didn't question whether this was really the Angel of the Lord that spoke to him in the dream, he just did what God told him to do. (At least, that's the edited version passed down through generations...) In reality, I suspect he was like most of us: sticking to the path he'd decided to embark on, but desperately afraid he was doing the wrong thing, and wondering all the time if that dream had been, after all, just a dream and not really God's direct command. At some point, he must have made peace with his decision--but I'm guessing it was after the decision was irrevocable, after he had tied the knot and married Mary and had nowhere else to go but down the path with her towards childbirth. Up until then, he must have been a confused mess of emotions going off in all different directions, especially wondering if God was *really* in this.
Maybe I'm projecting, but I don't think "peace" is the emotion most people feel when God puts them in a predicament.
I want to have more faith. I am not a woman of faith, not a particularly religious woman, but I do believe in God. And as such, I want to believe that s/he has some direction for my life, has called me to do certain things, and, thus, will help me even when things seem desperate, as they did for Mary, or uncertain, as they must have seemed to Joseph.
I'm reminded of a dream I had a few nights ago. In the dream, I was in a house, surrounded by women I know who are all young mothers. I wandered from person to person, but I couldn't relate to any of them because I'm not a mother. In fact, I felt inferior as I talked with them--there was a sense in which all of them had experienced a part of womanhood that I lacked, and we couldn't connect on that particular level. It made me feel robbed of something. And even as I tried to interest them in non-motherhood-related topics, I realized what I was doing: subconsciously, I was trying to make them feel inferior because I had a career and had travelled to so many exotic locales and done so many interesting things. Eventually, I separated myself from the mothers with babies--they were in one part of the house, while I was in another part of the house. In my part of the house, I was joined by my many African friends, and we discussed Africa, and politics, and health, and we ignored the issue of motherhood. Among these friends, I felt totally equal (though some of them are parents) because we were meeting on a different playing field.
I woke up and felt a moment of grief, like I'd lost my chance at motherhood, like I'd traded it in for Africa and writing. On reflection later, I realized that of course, I have never given up my dream of motherhood--until the last few years, I didn't have a spouse with whom I could have children. But I did feel the dream was speaking to me about my hidden desires as well as the obvious calling on my life to Africa. While all the other women in the room had chosen motherhood--and let me add, they are all young women I admire, who have made the choices they wanted to make in regards to choosing children over career, at least for the time being--I had not. And ultimately, I found myself in a room with the people I had chosen--Africans.
Did the dream signify that I'll never be a mother? Well, I sure hope not. Nor do I think it says that I'm inferior for not being a mother, or that those women are inferior for not having an interesting career that has allowed them to travel to exotic locales. But it does say a lot about my calling: where I've positioned myself in life, what I've chosen, perhaps even what God has chosen for me.
As I embark on this next stage of my life, trying to get pregnant, I'm constantly filled with doubts. Sometimes I wonder if motherhood is what God intends for me, or even if motherhood is something I want to add to my mixture of things I've already chosen (or that has chosen me)--Africa and writing. Sometimes I feel desperate to be pregnant, now, and sometimes, I secretly hope I'm not pregnant, so that nothing needs to change. In fact, I worry about how motherhood will prevent me from doing the things I feel I'm supposed to do in Africa--those vague, hazy outline of things that still haven't happened. I'm still waiting for the clarion call from God, the angel of the Lord appearing to me in a dream and telling me, "This is what you're supposed to do."
But like I said, it seems so clear in the Gospel story, but the path that God marked out for Mary and Joseph must have been hazy and uncertain to them. I wonder how fearful, and frustrated they must have felt as they walked down that road, wondering all the time if they could veer in a different direction, or if they even wanted to, or if this was really the path they were supposed to be on and if they weren't just fooling themselves. I wonder how much of this path I'm following I charted myself, and how much has been charted for me.
I don't know the answer to any of those questions. Like I said, I'm not a particular person of faith. But I'm trying.
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