Fertile Journey Through Genesis: Chapter 2:1-4


As God completed his act of creating, he ceased and rested.  Completion of a task should find its fulfillment in "an end." As a woman going through infertility, I wonder when my work will be done and when it can come to an end.  Some say infertility is a continuous battle, and is a grief that never completely resolves.  Yet, through Resolve, the National Infertility Association, I have heard various stories of how different women and men found their struggle resolved.  Whether it be through adoption, birth, or advocacy, there is hope of a time in which the struggle will cease and we'll be able to once again rest. I wonder about that day and whether or not it will feel like a holy or sacred moment.

Now, I know that this passage isn't speaking to infertility, but rather fertility.  "On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased/rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had done." In a like manner there is a time in which our creative powers find a sense of wholeness or completion in their work and this is when we are called then to cease and rest.

"And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done." I think about other aspects of my life and the sense of accomplishment and finality I have had in creative projects.  You know that feeling you get when you've finished drawing something, or when you see your flower garden finally blossom in all its glory?  There is a restful peace, almost a holiness to completion.  Another word for completion is wholeness.

I think that is what so many of us on this infertility journey are seeking - wholeness.  The news that we really aren't able to have children makes us feel incomplete.  It is this sense of incompleteness that drives us to seek out the best doctors, explore adoption agencies, and pray, pray, pray for a miracle.  Some people don't have this sense of incompleteness. They don't seem to have any desire to have children or to make a home for a family with little ones.  It is when we see ourselves next to those who lack this instinct, that we somehow know that we are supposed to become parents.  This is something we were made to do and the task has not yet been made complete.

For some the partnership with God in creating new human life comes easier than for others.  Just like a master piece of art flows from some quickly and simply, while from others takes decades to create.  The Sistine Chapel wasn't painted in a day, but the vision I'm sure was in the heart from the beginning.

We don't know what day we are on in God's creative act in our own lives.  Is today day two and I have a while left to persevere and grow through this trial? Or is today day six, and this afternoon I will see the results of our labors?  But, knowing that the seventh day is coming we hold on to hope, trusting that the holy moment of completion is yet to be born.



 

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