3 Ways to Pray with a Broken Heart

In the moments when we suffer - through loss, tragedy, trauma, or loneliness - God is never far from us. We know this. We've been told this, and reminded of this, and it's supposed to be a comfort to us. Unfortunately, none of that guarantees that it will feel easy to talk to Him when we suffer. If you've been in any of the powerfully painful situations I just mentioned, you can probably relate to how difficult it may be to have a dialogue with Him. You are angry, upset, and wanting to take it out on someone, something, and in some way. You want to exhaust yourself with the power of your grief, but you also want to plead for a different truth to your situation. If God could just show you a miracle right now! He could if He wanted to, you tell yourself.

And then you convince yourself that He isn't listening, because there you still are, broken-hearted, exhausted with the burden of an ugly truth, and unable to face it. For many, myself included, this can be a crucial moment when our conversation with God begins to break down. No matter how much sense it makes to keep our broken hearts close to God and aligned with the sufferings of Christ in our own misery... these tend to be the moments when we push God away. We tell ourselves that we can't handle it anymore. God isn't listening anyway, we reason.

I'll just pull myself up by my own strength of will. I'll push through the pain. I'll find an answer. With logic. And effort. And determination. We all do this kind of bargaining. For some, this stage of "powering through the grief" can last years. For others, it can happen within the hour of finding yourself on misery's doorstep.

But at some point, aren't we are forced to deal with the Truth? Not our "truth", but rather His Truth. We are not capable of making sense of His Plan. We can't understand with human emotion and human minds how to reconcile tragedy and loss and trauma and loneliness without Him. So how exactly do we do find God in moments like that? And how do we navigate a life that is simultaneously filled with joyous moments and grievous tragedies? How do we pray with a broken heart and find God in the seemingly smothering and immovable sea of our own suffering? 

Here are 3 Ways to Pray with a Broken Heart that help me in dark moments. I hope you find them helpful as well. If you do, share this with others.

1. Jesus is Our Prayer

"There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. Whether our prayer is communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray "in the name" of Jesus. The sacred humanity of Jesus is therefore the way by which the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray to God our Father." 

This is what we learn from the Catechism. It makes sense to tell ourselves (remind ourselves) that our access to God is through His Son - especially when our hearts are broken. Invoking Jesus' name is the easiest way to call Him within us. That means so much that I can hardly put more emphasis on it. Imagine the broken-hearted woman who weeps at the death of her child. Is she capable of anything but calling out to Jesus in pain? Imagine the injured survivors of a tsunami pulled out to sea. Are they capable of anything but calling out to Jesus in their dire moment of need? The name of the Son of God is a prayer itself. When we are praying in dark moments and uncontrollably weeping and incapable of even standing, we need only to invoke His name and it becomes our entire prayer. He hears us. God the Father hears us. The Truine God weeps with us. And no perfectly fitted rhyming verse that is dutifully called to memory supersedes the power of a simple prayer. All we have to do is say His name. Jesus. Jesus. AMEN.

Yes, that imagery paints a powerful picture - pulled out to sea, with your calls in earshot of no one but God, wading through dangerous debris as you weep for what once was. And you might be thinking how so few moments in life are that stripped down and dark and desperate that we might have no other power in us but to say the Name of God over and over in our pain. True. (And you thank merciful God for that.) At the heart of all prayer in times of need - the kind that sucks the strength from our knees and the air from our lungs...the kind that is so powerful that we are completely overcome - it's a powerful reminder that we aren't performing for God. We aren't praying complicated prayers in hopes that He'll listen only if we get them right or say them with enough repetition. That helps me in my darkest moments. God suffers with us. The Author of Compassion. We are not alone, even in our darkest moments when all we can manage is to utter His name. Jesus is enough. He is our prayer. 

Let's dig deeper on that Catechism quotation though, because there is a lot of meat in that simple sentence. Communal. Personal. Vocal. Interior. These are all ways that are called out as ways to pray.

2. Get Back to Basics

When you are raised Christian, you are often taught to pray at bedtime...on your knees with your hands clasped together, kneeling at the side of your bed. But how many of us pray like that as adults? How often are our conversations with God even out loud anymore, let alone said at the foot of our bed with prayerful hands? My point: Go with what you know. Pray the way you were taught to pray. And if no one ever taught you to pray - take a moment to kneel by your bedside, palms clasped together, with your head bowed. How often do we hear someone say "God hears the prayers of children loudest"? Then what makes us think that our adult broken hearts need to aspire to more? What makes us think that a more complicated prayer is better or the goal? I'm not saying that we need to reduce our conversation with Christ to a litany of requests that might be better aimed at Santa Claus. The maturity of our prayer doesn't come from the form it takes though. Get back to basics. Do what you know. Pray with your broken heart at the foot of your bed. Yell at God - He can take it. ("The righteous cry out, the LORD hears and he rescues them from all their afflictions." Psalms 34:18). Give Him everything that broke your heart. Every last bit. What you will find is that peace and a little bit of certainty will find you right there at the foot of your bed when you do.

But what about the beauty of litanies, petitions, novenas, chaplets, Saints, and all the rest you forgot?! Yes, yes, yes, there is immense beauty and comfort to be found there. Let's talk about how the broken-hearted can use them to find God in dark moments.

3. Let the Saints Pray with You

Let me first say that you don't have to be Catholic to pray Catholic prayers. Remember that catholic means "universal". All who call Christ into their hearts are joined by that shared Truth. And one of the beauties of the universality of being Christian is that we have amazing examples of suffering available to us through the holy saints. There are people who lived before us (and among us!!) who really get our pain in a human way, without being divine themselves (and honestly sometimes that is easier to relate to in dark moments because the divine suffering and Passion of Christ can seem so unreachable). Use that gateway of understanding as a way to find Jesus through your pain. For nearly every instance of suffering, there is a human saint known to us. They all came into existence just like us. They suffered just like us. They failed just like us. And they were purified through their pain and deep suffering by a merciful God who heard THEIR prayers. When we pray with broken hearts and we give God our suffering, we are saying YES to drawing nearer to sainthood ourselves. Let it be done unto me! When we pray for the favor of God by asking others who have suffered to pray for us, we are uniting our pain with those who understand. It's not us vs. the world, in another clear defeat. It's all of us with a shared suffering speaking at once. Take a moment to look up the "saint of suffering" or the "saint of infertility" or the "patron of loneliness". There are gobs of them - waiting to intercede with God on your behalf. Let them help amplify your broken-hearted prayers to Christ. The amazing thing about the saints is that they often are associated with specific prayers. You don't even have to find the words yourself! Sometimes God gave them directly to the saint with detailed instructions on exactly what to say and do in difficult times! St. Faustina is a great example of this with her Divine Mercy chaplet and story. There are so many others.

Let structured prayer help you find an inner peace that is hidden underneath your misery. Let it help connect you back to what you already know. Those prayers can be simple verses from the Bible or they can be structured into several day long prayers (that's what a novena is), or they can take the form of a rosary (just a couple of prayers, said in repetition, highlighting Christ's suffering - it's not hard to say a rosary and you don't have to be Catholic to try!). There is comfort to be found in the Word of God, but oftentimes when we are hurting, the empathy of someone who has suffered similarly to us can be helpful. It's a shortcut to find God again through the pain. Use the saints and the prayers they bring us. They are real human examples of God talking to us directly. Listen to that Voice.

Lastly, you don't need the perfect words. There is purpose to this suffering, even if you can't see it. And God has already redeemed it. Remember this: The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, saves those whose spirit is crushed. (Psalm 34:19, NABRE)

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Whatever way you choose, know that you aren't praying alone. My family prays for broken hearts daily. We have a specific devotion to those struggling with infertility, but our prayers our broad enough and specific enough to be including you and your struggles too. If you have shared your pain with us in any way, you are prayed for each day. If you are suffering in pain, illness, loneliness, tragedy, with loss, and any number of circumstances...we're doing our part here to help carry the burden a tiny bit. How do you pray with a broken heart? Tell us in the comments - we can always use your inspiration!

Grief vs. Mourning

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. - Matthew 5:4

Someone asked me if I was done grieving recently. I couldn't find the words to answer. Is it possible that people don't know the difference between mourning and grieving?

Mourning is a completely different thing from grieving. Mourning is an action and a manifestation of missing someone by actively remembering them in words and deeds. It is a behavior that can be anticipated and is associated with a loss.

It can be lived out loud and with others. It can take the form of a tribute. It can become a living parable or proverb, a tradition, a folkway. But grief manifests itself in ways that cannot be anticipated, planned for, staved off, or tucked away.  

Mourning is a reaction and a choice, however disorganized. It is something that can be practiced and reasoned and wrestled with....

But grief is not like that.

It's the pang in between the silences

and the indescribable suffering

of a loss and the void

When breath is robbed
 and eyes are stinging 

and fingers can find no solace 

in repeatedly tracing a thing...

Grief lives there.

When the stillness of the morning 

is broken by the slightest sound 

and reality comes rushing in...

Grief lives there.

When the warmth of the sun 

touches your skin and your lips 

almost curl into a smile 

but that lump forms in your throat

and stays there a longer while...

Grief lives there.

In the hustle and buzzing 

of life all around you,

a deep void will creep in

so precisely and drown you

so that even the loudest noise

will dull into the distance

and a cocoon of numbness

is your replacement existence...

Grief lives there.

But in that moment 

before all of those things,

There is an innocence. 

No heaviness, no pang, and no twinge. 

No ill and no throat lump 

No lost breath or cringe,

Just lightness and life 

and all the unawares 

that have not been stolen

but still hang in the air. 

Because no grief lives there.

The moment before it
is like virgin snow 

under the shadow of a boot 

that the ground doesn't know. 

It is a peaceful lake 

with no ripple upon it. 

It is the tranquil stillness 

on the plain with no breeze.

It is the absence of sorrow

before the emptiness rushes in.

It is pure, unassuming, oblivious, and free. 

And grief is the interruption,
the sudden absence of "ok",

without the grace of anticipation,
and you are its prey.

It is the distance from reason

and it's the author of pain 

in between the silences, again...

Grief lives there

-MC

~If this description of grief speaks to you, share your thoughts in the comments.~

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage...

....then comes denial, bargaining, anger, tears, and acceptance?

I think my problem recently has been looking at my marriage through the stages of grief. Over the past year and change, the process of trying to unravel our fertility issues has taken its toll on us. For me, it has colored and camouflaged love in the form I knew and recognized and understood it...so I just don't see it as easily as I did before.

Marriage is not my grief though. Our fertility is. But the fact that my fertility was never fully realized until I was married is what intertwines and confuses this topic for me so often. At least that is today's self-diagnosis! :)

I don't suppose that I write today with answers so much as I write with questions and to process 'out loud'. How do we encounter our spouse, through the lens of infertility, without our marriage suffering? The people who can answer that question with "It's easy, you just..." are the people who don't sit here as I carefully count out X number of fertility-focused pills each day and figure out when I can eat before one of them and which ones have to wait until after Y and the math on how I can manage to keep Z exactly 12 hours apart from X if meal A is late today. They aren't the people who get horrid bruises from incompetent Lab.Corp staff every. single. month. And they aren't the people who have lived the hope and subsequent let down when you are once again not pregnant (whether that involved never being pregnant or losing a pregnancy).

There is no "It's easy, you just..." to this Catholic path of being married and not having children. It's like a constant itch. We know we're living our vocation and that children are an important component to that. In the day-to-day living of that reality we feel the void. There is a place in our life for children that is not occupied. And we as married creatures feel that void heavily, though differently as man and woman.

When I finally got the courage to start talking about this journey 'out loud' (read: I still cringe every time I push the 'publish' button), I didn't realize how consumed my life and every passing thought is focused to the goal of having children. I knew we were immersed in treatment for the betterment of my health. I knew that we were focused on conceiving and carrying a child. But I didn't realize how much of a one-track-record-on-repeat that I have become. I went from being a dynamic, smiley, multi-hobbied, adventure-loving, light-hearted girl to a monotone, frown-faced and miserable ear-worm in under two years. It just feels like I have a constant thundercloud over my head...

And why is that? How did that happen? Actually, I know the answer to that question; I can even tell you all of the steps to achieve that! This is the moment where I realize NFP's impact on my psyche and how I have approached my marriage. And I'm not talking about the practice of achieving or timing things, y'all. There are other blogs that whine about that and I have no intention of joining that chorus. What I mean is a little different. My NFP chart is an integral part of my medical treatment plan and it is the 'God document' if-you-will on how our marriage looks on paper. For spouses to encounter each other, even from the early newlywed days, there have always been ultrasounds, needles, pints and pints of blood draws, bruises from the blood draws, pelvic exams, cervical exams, laparoscopic surgery, incisions, stitches, abnormal bleeding, infections, torn-up stomachs from antibiotics, fevers, drug induced panic and anxiety, drug interactions, severe exhaustion and lingering fatigue, drastic diet changes, itchy rashes, constant recurring UTIs.......... and the list goes on.

No-flipping-wonder!

Marriage has literally HURT for the entire time I have experienced it. It has involved fear and physical and emotional pain the entire time. No wonder I'm not having any fun over here and I feel like a 2 dimensional bore! How did I not see this before? Maybe it's because the cyclical reality that I live now involves an active audience and it never did before (at least he doesn't make popcorn and sit back and watch me unravel like I'm a one-act tragedy)? Maybe it's because one hundred percent of our marriage has had to be focused on children from day one because the women in my family go through early menopause and I'm not young enough to be casual about this? Maybe it's all of the above and a couple things I'm not thinking of yet? I bet it's probably that last one, y'all.

I sit here thinking about how every single month has been lived as a neat, contained cycle of grief. And how each month after the next has been compartmentalized and disconnected from the previous disappointments and becomes it's own vacuum-sealed terrarium of grief [that's right, I just described marriage like it was part of the Kreb's cycle... :)] If we continue this way, I'm going to need a very large warehouse for all of these individual compartments of grief. None of that sounds like a great way to live out marriage in the long term.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

"We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed..."

So this is where I ask you if you can relate. How do you rise above the fog? I can't seem to connect with the girl I used to be - she knew tons about life that had nothing to do with making babies and the heartbreak that comes with that. She wasn't boring or monotone. So what works for you? How did you push the reset button? (Counseling and spiritual direction are definitely part of the answer. We know that much. I'm more asking what else worked for you with your spouse. You are creative, internets! Share your creative wisdom!)

Sincerely,
A needy newlywed

A Wedding Anniversary

Today began with the knowledge that I would inevitably be mentally processing the contents of the past year of life throughout my waking (maybe also my dreaming?) hours. While I see the wisdom of focusing on the good and all of the blessings this year, there is also very real pain that has been lived because (and since) I got married. Sooo......... much like one of the find-own-adventure books from years ago, that's how I'll be publishing this: as a circumflexion if you will, that can be read from both vantage points; two stories that connect at the seams and occurred in concert.

How to read the information ahead: both relevant posts are linked below. You (the reader) will choose which experience you wish to continue reading. Each of those posts will have a preface on them that links them back to this post, so that it makes sense to the reader what they are a primer for...

Thank you to my readers - who I am both grateful to and humbled in front of, because this story lived out loud - especially this one - is a tough one to type. I am all at once vulnerable by the honesty and details that are shared within this story and thankful that they are no longer just lived and left to occupy my memory.

I have read so many blogs over the years, infertility blogs amongst them, and the beginning of my journey down this unlikely path was very much colored by feeling I had nothing to offer to the conversation. "How did I even belong in that conversation so early?" I reckoned with myself. I silenced my thoughts amongst the sea of pain that others expressed, because I believed everyone else's stories held more meaning, more pain, and were more worthy of telling. A void in my life couldn't possibly be as painful as the same void in other people's lives walking this path of infertility/subfertility/miscarriage/etc. Obviously, God pulled me out of that painful chrysalis of thought and I found the courage to begin chronicling my own steps on this path on this blog recently. My thoughts here are mostly indistinguishable from yours. We are the same in so many ways. And we write to make sense of this thing we cannot make sense of so similarly. We hope we are taking steps forward that will bring us to realizing our deepest dreams (coated in our deepest fears). We go to sleep at night (or not) believing we are doing the right things to achieve those dreams, and yet unable to be certain we are walking anything but a circle as we live in each moment.

I write today for the women who have not found the courage to give volume to their voice. If anything you see in these posts is something you relate to - please know that I am praying for you. Please know that you are not alone. Please know that this journey is purposeful and I wish I could encourage you to join this walk out loud with me. It is helpful. And it is in hindsight, post by post, that I am beginning to see that.

God bless everyone reading here and thank you for keeping me in your prayers. May there be brighter days ahead. And if for some reason there are not brighter days in store, then Lord please make my eyes unable to discern the difference between gray skies and sunshine.


If you would like to continue reading about the year in review was like, click here.

If you would like to continue reading about what the year ahead will bring, click here.

A Year In Review

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 Before you read this post, please make sure you read this introduction first.
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*** triggers mentioned: surgery, miscarriages, murder, abduction, sudden death ***

Last year on this day, I was recovering from surgery. I had stitches from a laparoscopy in my stomach in multiple places and some of them were black, itchy, and oozing blood. I had my period and everything that came with it. I was wearing a corseted, bone white satin gown. My pain medicine had been lost and no one could find it. My ankles were hot and swollen and stuffed into compression socks that barely held up under the pressure of the edema. My neck was swollen and my thyroid throbbed like someone had taken a ball-peen hammer to it. I was weeping and wincing in pain with every movement. Emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed. My entire body shuddered for hours from the physical and emotional manifestations of that pain, but everyone thought I was just nervous. My mind was a complete fog. And I had a fever and a rash creeping around my mid-section that itched like Satan had taken up residence in the layers of my epidermis.

It was also my wedding day.

I could lie and pretend that I sit here as a happy person today....wistfully looking back at the joy of such a wonderful day. I could tell you that a smile comes to my face when I look back at the me of last year who didn't know about all of the wonderful things ahead. And this being the internet, you'd just sit there and read it and pass right by it like every other Catholic retelling of the joyous life of newlyweds.

But that isn't my story. And telling tall tales about it isn't going to change how I remember that day, or the 365 that came after it. And it isn't going to get me or my spouse to Heaven. I might as well be honest so that anyone who can even marginally relate to this knows that they aren't alone. And maybe also so that I can find a bit of peace in finally admitting it all out loud.

I was diagnosed with endometriosis a couple weeks before my wedding. It was a leap of faith to say yes to surgery a few weeks before I would hop a plane to Ireland to get married. If things didn't go well... well, there wasn't even time for a back-up plan. Things either were or weren't going to be OK.

At the time, I barely knew the Catholic surgeon who operated on me, only having met her once before the date of my surgery. I vividly remember the moments leading up to the anesthetic that morning though...where she gave me a rosary that Pope Francis had blessed and held it tightly in between our hands as she prayed over me for peace and healing. I remember waking up and hearing about the endo that was excised from my uterine ligaments and ovary.

I remember my stomach being ripped to pieces by the antibiotics in the days afterwards. And the extreme reactions to my first doses of T3, one of which involved passing out for hours on the floor - only to awake to irritated voicemail messages from the priest who would be marrying us because he couldn't get in touch with me over last minute paperwork before I traveled overseas.

I remember feeling defeated at having to manage so much luggage en route to the airport when I could barely manage walking without using both hands pressed against my stomach to 'keep my guts in place'. I remember the airport staff that took pity on me, the extra luggage fees that were waived, the help that was offered to get me over the Atlantic.

I remember the cantor who tried to charge us an additional 350 Euro the day before the wedding, figuring that we'd pay it like a ransom. And I remember all of the people who selflessly offered help in making things go off without a hitch.

I remember my extremely (read: more extremely than you're taking that to mean) introverted fiance struggling with the social interactions, the demands of last-minute wedding details, and not having any idea how to comfort me as I threw up in a tupperware container while wincing in pain with each heave as I felt my stitches being pulled to their limits against the skin they had been sewed into.

I remember having to drink three glasses of champagne just to manage the stairs walking into my own reception and how often my glass had to be filled after that so I could manage the rest of the evening without feeling like I would pass out.

I remember being nauseated and passing out on our honeymoon and feeling like something was really wrong. And I remember that day at work after the honeymoon when I was stuck in the bathroom - marooned in a stall - bleeding out and miscarrying a child I didn't even know I was carrying.

I remember the ultrasounds after that where I focused on the knowledge that I had more experience with those 10 days of invasive procedures than I did with the sacrament that had made me a wife and a mother.

I remember the weeping so hard that I burst blood vessels in my face. And feeling dead inside. And I remember the next months where that hCG mimicked the feelings of 1st trimester illness I had felt on my honeymoon and how hopeless and lost and utterly shattered each reliving of that and each CD1 made me feel.

I remember the hope of lots of two-week-waits and the confusion when no pregnancy came. And news that we now had a problem. I remember all of the severe side effects of the fertility drugs that I took, the anxiety and panic attacks that they caused, the appetite that disappeared, and the weight that was gained. I remember the changing of medicine doses and the disappointments that came with each one of them, the hormone profiles that made me feel like a death trap, and how all the small victories seemed stale. I remember asking my wedding photographer if there was even one picture with a smile in it and expecting to hear a quick 'no'.

I remember the murder of Paul, the murder of Nathan, the sudden death of my godmother from aggressive ovarian cancer that changed my own treatment plan, our 2nd miscarriage that persisted over my own birthday, and the disappearance of Zulma.

I remember being fired after the 2nd miscarriage because I had taken three days of bereavement leave and the lesbian interim HR director that considered it an inappropriate use of leave time because 'it was not an immediate family member'. I remember having to prove that I hadn't been involved in any misconduct when the unemployment office called to question my dismissal. And I remember the envelope that contained the letter that read 'dismissed after miscarriage, no evidence of misconduct apparent'.

And I remember staring at this once-blank-blog-post - wondering how I could write anything today and yet knowing I had to anyway. Last year we celebrated the Feast of St. Thomas More on June 22nd and I chose to pray a special prayer. This year on June 22nd, we also celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, so I think it's interesting that I'm in the middle of praying to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This year I renew my prayers for intercession from the patron saint of adoption and foster care, and I add my prayers to Christ and Mary. The celebration of the mystery of the Eucharistic miracle is something we acknowledge and receive each time the bread and wine are consecrated at a Mass. We ought to spend some time in prayerful contemplation of what that means and I'm taking that seriously this year.

Jesus did not die on the cross so that I might live a fairytale wedding day and frolick through the fields of the first 365 days of marriage. He was not born into poverty while whispers of the scandal against His Mother were on everyone's lips so that I could live a comfortable life devoid of pain. He did not pay the price for us with his own suffering and death so that I could sit here and write a glib post about the top ten things I love about the first year of my marriage.

Jesus promised that He would be here to suffer with me if I sought Him out. He promised He would comfort me when I felt alone. And that my reward in Heaven would be contingent on the faith I breathed on Earth. He asked me to be faithful because He died, not in spite of it.

So yes, I sit here today with 365 days behind me, broken and numb hearted, with another rash and fever, again with my period and angry uterus screaming to bring down the last bit of resolve I can muster, and certainly with several more grey hairs to count on my head, listening to all the cliches about how newlywed life is filled with unbridled passion and wanton abandon and how these are the best days of my life. Being told to be thankful for this past year and all of the good it must have involved. All of that may very well be the truth I can't see right now.

But you won't find me complaining in my misery. God calls me to live out my faith and I'm trying my best to do it. No matter how ugly it looks from the outside. No matter how ugly it feels on the inside. Trust is trust. And you don't gain it by anything but practicing it. That's how my faith needs to be. And that's very much how my marriage needs to be. The sacrament has meaning beyond and above the pain and suffering. The vocation has worth beyond and above the shortfalls and disappointments. The struggle is worth the promise of the eternal reward.