A Certain type of Wealth and Poverty

This is something I needed to come across, read, and digest. Ponder. Take to heart. The author of this post is a real inspiration. Her name is Helen, and she has the Castle of the Immaculate Blog.
She writes about it here , but I'm going to put it on my blog so I can read, and re-read it!

Wealth and Poverty

Who can “handle” another child? Who truly is capable of providing for the needs of another soul made in the image and likeness of God? Who can be trusted to guide a new life safely through this life of dangers and pitfalls? We are all stricken with the illness of the soul – original sin. We all labor with darkened intellects and weakened wills. So, who can “handle another child?”

The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph were so good that God entrusted Himself as a baby to them. Despite their physical poverty, they were made fit spiritually for the dignity of the office of parenting God. With complete dependence upon the Will of God and prayerful serenity, the Immaculate and Her chaste spouse accomplished the impossible: They parented God! How can man parent the Creator? This is an impossibility. Yet this is precisely the vocation of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph. How often did they tremble at the road which lay ahead of them?

We have to trust that despite our weaknesses and failings, by trusting God, we will be made fit to steer the young we are given into the paths of God.

The wealth of fertility:
You know every one who comes into contact with your baby. Everyone. You know where your baby is every second of its new life. Your baby is with you right now, no guessing where he is. You know every sound and voice your baby knows. You know and control every thing your new baby eats. You can speak to your baby immediately. You can communicate to him with your heart and he knows you and you know him. You have new life within you, even if it is briefly. Every sacrament you receive, he receives.
The wealth of privacy:
In a perfect world, a baby should be between a husband and wife and no one else. When you have the wealth of fertility, you do not have to ask anyone’s permission to have a baby. You do not need to explain to your doctor, the pediatrician, the social worker and adoption agency, and the state all the personal plans you have for your family and future. The wealth of being sure of God’s plan. Conformity to the Will of God is the sure path to sanctification. The wealth of fertility allows you to know what God’s plan is for you. In marriage, if you find yourself expecting, you know exactly what God wants of you. The path is clear.

The great women we find in the Old Testament considered children a great blessing. When these women called to God in poverty, they cried because they couldn’t have children. For example, Hannah (Samuel’s mother) and Rachel (Joseph’s mother) both beseeched God because of their poverty (and Rachel was very prosperous in the eyes of the world). They suffered the poverty of infertility. For those who do not have the wealth of fertility, the poverty can be distressing. Rachel in the Old Testament expresses the feeling of infertility dramatically: “Give me children or give me death.”


The consoling way to look at infertility is to turn to the Gospel and see infertility as a poverty. Then we can take this cross, this terrible pain, and turn it into a great, sanctifying grace. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. When the Lord spoke of the Kingdom of heaven, He said: “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Meaning the Kingdom is already here. He is the Kingdom, the manifestation of the Trinity. When we draw close to Him and His ways we find the Kingdom of heaven. In the beatitudes, Jesus teaches us that this Kingdom belongs to the poor in spirit. With the poverty of infertility, one is given the opportunity in prayer to be truly poor: “May I also have a child in my womb, but if I cannot I will be satisfied (and greatly satisfied) fulfilling Your Will for me. Thy Will be done, not mine.” Since no new life is created within the barren womb, this allows the great emptiness to be filled with Jesus Himself.

Isn't that a beautiful way to look at it? I pray for the grace to be able to say always, "Not my will, but Thine be done, Oh most loving Jesus"