I was not hoping for a girl or for a boy. How does one in this scenario have room to hope for anything beyond a still viable womb, a still strong-beating, thumbnail-sized heart? I am not certain it’s wrong to hope for any or all of these. Hope is just a sort of holy grasping after all.

If by hope we mean expectation, perhaps it would have behooved me to have even an ounce of it walking into our appointment that day. Perhaps it would have saved me the grief of surprise emotion when the woman smearing me with jelly said as she’s said a thousand times before that congratulations, she’s yours. 

She? In hindsight, had I wished for her, well then, sound the trumpets! And perhaps had I wished for him, I’d have been able to lose the idea of him properly before moving on. I could tuck his name away someplace behind my eyes and reimagine our life anew. But having really made no case for either, there was not time for trumpeting nor was there reason for the tucking. There was just me with my pants pulled down and a hurricane of tears I had not budgeted for.

That’s the real grief, isn’t it? Being startled by a feeling, a memory or some other untouchable thing you couldn’t have known was there. It’s not the feeling itself that leaves you violated as much as it is the unforeseen ambush. The guts it has to sneak up and spook you and rummage through your drawers. As someone quite considerate, attentive, to the contents of my home, meaning the sentiments inside me, I can think of nothing more unnerving than this. You think the foreigner might respect the house rules and at least leave its shoes by the door, but it doesn’t. it traipses in with muddy feet and scares the children.

We anticipate that we could feel fear, being first time parents. We anticipate feeling ill-equipped, being as we are only kids ourselves. What we don’t anticipate is the rejection of the word girl as it leaves the nurses happy mouth, and not because of sadness or disappointment or unmet expectation, but precisely because when you go in your head to picture your grown daughter, you’re disillusioned in horror that she turned out to be like you. That is the grief you and I can’t plan for.

She’s being stitched together this very minute, and I regret any of my badness that’s being sewed in. I just couldn’t have known that in all my pure joy there’d be with it a troublesome guest gone completely unaccounted for. Hand in hand with my husband and every answered prayer, crying out in a panicky desperation for someone more tender, more patient, more contented than her sorry mother.

And maybe this is where our work begins even now, hope as our discipline. May our capacity for it grow tall, deep, and wide. Grasping through faith that she’d not eat the bread of idleness. That she would bring good and not harm and have a laugh that saves her. That her arms would be strong for her tasks and her tongue spilling with faithful instruction. My greatest hope of them being that even though she’s mine, she’s not – that even though I’m penniless, she’s worth more than all the rubies in this world.

Here are a few, swirling thoughts I’ve had lately:

God’s will is not synonymous with “his want” for bad things to happen. He does not cause sickness, world tragedy, incumbent fear, loss, addiction, toppling doubt, abuse, injustice, and unmet desire. Divinity is nonlinear, meaning we cannot see or understand the grand picture in our limited, transient scope. His will repurposes our great physical, mental and spiritual sufferings to bring them back to eventual order. An Eden before anyone knew we were naked. 

Until then, we will have blood-clogged pores in Gethsemane – the tormented place where our will and God’s disconnect. We step into the same scene at dusk that occasioned a simple prayer from a son: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” 

It is not weak or ignorant or greedy or a lack of faith to petition in prayer. Just because God doesn’t promise it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t come to him with the full expression of our ask. The latter part, “Not my will, but yours,” is a fine prayer by itself, but it leaves out the honest and broken element which Christ wants to hold. We come before God not sorry for what we want and not sugarcoating how we feel, but presenting these to him in their whole human form.

Likewise, omitting God’s will from the end of our garden prayer, coming to Him with nothing more than a plea, leaves an awful lot of space to be crushed beneath the weight of His supposed absence when we don’t get what he has not promised us. Giving our longings over to an unseen will beckons an element of trust which some happen upon too quickly and some never find at all. 

In essence, teach us to pray not one without the other. Help us not to beg without submission and caution us against blissfully submitting without a proper beg. The template of Jesus shows us how to carry both. I want marriage by 30. If I can’t have marriage, I want sex without sin. My marriage is empty and I want out. Would you deliver my brother from the grip of his illness. Please give us a child. I’m fearful that I will miscarry, protect my body and bring this baby full term. Father, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, let there be a conviction in court for the men that killed my boy…”Yet not my will, but Yours.”

None of the above is promised, and our prayers don’t increase the chances that they’ll be granted. In fact, even after our yielding, we may still come away sickened that He’s forsaken us. But at least we have a dwelling place, a safe pasture in which to unload our anger, sadness, and earnest hopes. At least we know the desires of our heart matter to God. Our emotional pain matters to God. Our humble supplications, they are not too little or too much, they matter to God. Thank you that you consider our grief. In this world, we will have troubles. Let us wrestle them down with You.