What does it mean to be "blessed?"

My online acquaintance Lori Rooney has a wonderful post that details her experience with infertility and then adoption. While Ted and Lori are much further along in their adoption journey (now parents of the beautiful Abe!), and while no two of our stories are exactly alike, the experience she writes about is very familiar to me.

I did get married at 40, so at some point during my 30s it occured to me that I may never have children. Somewhere along the way I mourned that a little, while still clinging to a tiny hope that I would be one of those women who had no problem getting pregnant over 40. It was not to be....so while I mourned (and mourn), I'm not sure I feel it quite as acutely as women in their early 30s who thought they still had plenty of time, who thought they SHOULD be able to get pregnant with no problem. Who still have tons of friends around them conceiving babies with little effort.

My grief has had a little bit more time to sink in and I've had more time to process it. But it's still there and rears it's ugly head, especially now that I'm 44 and that door will be slammed shut for good in a few short years (if it isn't already).

Lori writes about her experience with comments like "It's too bad you can't have your OWN baby." Hence, the title of her blog "Our own Rooney." Their adopted son is their "own" baby.

But for people who are infertile or have a child through adoption, there's a constant bombardment of comments from people who aren't out to hurt, but do so anyway, mostly out of ignorance.

This is true of so many things. The pain in one's life is unique, and even friends can say something that pushes a button, set something off inside of you. They don't mean to. They just don't know any better. They don't know your experience. They can't understand what a simple statement feels like to the person experiencing a certain kind of pain that is so far from their own experience.

I went through this when my mother died. People say the stupidest things. But I learned to forgive because I realized that they can't really understand unless they've been through it.

Well, there's a phrase that has been pushing my buttons lately. I've heard a handful of people say it, and both times it was from people who have several biological children and it was said in the context of those said children. The phrase is (drum roll....):

"I just feel so blessed!"

Okay, I understand that there's nothing wrong with that phrase in and of itself. I'm glad they feel blessed. They should feel blessed. But when that's said to someone who's struggling with infertility, and struggling to come up with the money for adoption, it feels like a poke in a fresh wound with a parring knife.

What I FEEL when I hear that phrase is: "I'm blessed because I have children. That means that you're not blessed. I have a gift that God hasn't given you. So na-na-na-na-na. I guess you're doing something wrong that God hasn't given you this gift."

Now, I KNOW that isn't the intention of the people making this comment. In fact, I think if I ever told them how I feel when they say that they would be mortified. These aren't the kinds of friends who are out to gloat or hurt me. But through the filter of my pain, that's what I hear: Gloating.

It's also made me really start wondering what it means to be "blessed." I haven't really figured it all out yet. There are times when I feel blessed, and times when I don't. When it comes to the child issue, I don't feel "blessed." But I think there's something wrong with a theology that defines "being blessed" as having lots of children. Or a big house and lots of money, for that matter.

What does it mean to you to be "blessed?" I'm curious. I feel like I need help figuring this out.

It seems to me, too that it's all very relative. You can feel blessed compared to one person (I feel blessed that I have good health, when I think about my two friends who have died of breast cancer), but I don't feel blessed when I think of my friends who got pregnant easily after age 40.

So I know I"m thinking about this all wrong -- my obsession with "comparing" myself is all out of whack.

Is God "blessing" me? What does that mean? Could I be "blessed" with an internal transformation and humility because of what I'm going through? If so, that's not something other people automatically see, so maybe to them I don't seem as "blessed" as I would if I had a couple of kids running around.

I just think we need to be more careful when we throw around that term, because some blessings are obvious. Others are hidden in the midst of what seems like a huge struggle or in the midst of pain.

God's blessings are complicated, mysterious, seemingly random but they're probably not, and unexpected.

So when someone says "I feel so blessed," I will be happy for them, and then realize that blessings come in all shapes and sizes and the blessings I have may not be so obvious.....