CONNECT | Love-Marriage-Baby

A Reflection and InvitationBy: Rev. Alice Hernandez

Life is a journey and our faith helps us navigate the journey. On a journey, we naturally assume there is a progression. We expect that things happen in a predictable order. We expect to have friends, family, and a community to help us along the way. When this predictable order is disrupted, we turn to our faith for answers. When this predictable order is disrupted, sometimes it takes courage to turn to our friends, family, and community for help along the way.

I turned to my faith for answers when the natural progression didn’t happen like I assumed. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby carriage, right? The first two events happened in their predictable fashion but the latter seemed to be delayed, and delayed, year after year. The whimsical approach that friends and family suggested ‘it will happen when you aren’t trying’ was no longer comforting. How could scripture and my faith help me especially with a Bible that is thousands of years removed from my life experience? The Biblical narrative is void of modern medicine and technology that I see helps people every day in the hospital where I work and therefore, how could this Bible help me?

I found my help in the Creation story found in the first chapter of Genesis. God created out of deliberate intentionality. There was nothing whimsical or happenstance about Creation. If God created this way, and called the Creation good, could I not create a baby with a similar deliberate approach?

I had to find the courage to ask for the help I needed, which I admit, took time. What is normally a private and intimate affair between a couple had to become less and less private and more and more calculated. It took courage to accept my limitations and embrace the available help I needed to become pregnant. There are many steps, twists and turns in my journey, but one comforting part was that I found a group of supportive women during my journey. A group of women who, like me, struggled to become pregnant. Women who, like me, had suffered a miscarriage or more. Women who, like me, wondered how their faith informed each decision along the way.

Out of my experience of support and help in my journey, I am beginning a monthly support group this month called Creation.  Wherever you are in your journey, you are welcome to join.

Register your interest below. The notification will come to me and I'll be in touch via email with further details.

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