The Answering of Prayers

When Mandy and I were going through our miscarriages, I obviously did a lot of praying. Aside from the obvious prayers for Mandy’s health and for us to have a child soon, I also prayed for the wisdom to understand the message G-d was trying to send us.

I understood that G-d is in compete control of everything, and that even the miscarriages were part of G-d’s plan. Mandy and I had both prayed for a child, and while our prayer was answered, it seemed to be answered with a “No”. I knew that there was a reason for the negative answer to our prayer, G-d was sending us a message, and it’s up to us to decode it. So I prayed for the wisdom to do that.

This past weekend, I think my prayer may have been answered. I think I may understand a tiny part of message.

Before the miscarriages, our greatest fear about having a baby was that Mandy would not be able to get pregnant. It took her parents many years to conceive Mandy and her sister. When we prayed to G-d for a child, G-d’s answer wasn’t “No” it was “Not right now”. But G-d didn’t want us to worry that we would be unable to conceive, so we conceived very easily both times, but then lost the pregnancy. We are now no longer worried that we’ll be unable to conceive. And we now have a pregnancy that, G-d willing, will carry through.

There is still another part of the message that is unclear, why were we not to have a child at that time? I don’t think we’ll be able to answer that one for a long time … until we have enough perspective to look back on these events. Maybe it was because we needed to visit Israel (and we would not have gone if the first pregnancy would have held). Maybe it was because we needed to be brought closer to G-d, or to each other. All three of these things were consequences of the miscarriages.

I don’t know that we’ll ever KNOW what message G-d was sending to us, but I thank G-d for giving me with wisdom to get a glimpse of what the message might be.