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I want to just state as a reminder I am not a theologian, a grief counselor, a biblical scholar, or an expert at anything really. I am a woman that has been wounded and is working to heal those wounds and through sharing that personal journey I hope to help other women and men seeking healing as they navigate infertility, miscarriage and childlessness. 

These are my own observations and experiences. I do my best to reference reliable sources and quotes and share readings and research I have done and spiritual direction I have been given. Today’s podcast is going to be very religious in nature and by religious I mean Catholic and I will say theological for lack of another term as you may disagree with that classification. 

Ok so Today I wanted to talk about a meditation that has been very powerful for me. It has been my experience on the path to healing that we need to seek things that we can relate to, things we can tie our pain to so that we might gain some clarity, some understanding and maybe a bit of acceptance. And this meditation, well I am not so sure it is a meditation but I have personally meditated and prayed on this a great deal and it has given me a great deal of peace because it made me feel seen and known within my own grieving and healing process.  I learned about this in the prayer book, la pieta. The meditation is on the prayer to the shoulder wound of christ and more specifically on the revealing of that wound. It was not so much the prayer but the explanation. In La Pieta it says that St. Benard asked Our Lord which was his greatest unrecorded suffering and our lord answered I had on my shoulder while I bore my cross on the way of sorrows a grievous wound which was more painful than the others and which was not recorded by man.

It goes on and talks about honoring the wound and remitting sins. I was really moved by this the first time I read it and honestly I am moved by it every time I read it. A few things struck me, first, I had never heard of the shoulder wound of Christ and second I felt a deeper connection to Christ because of this wound. I felt a connection to the shoulder wound because that’s how I view infertility, miscarriage and childlessness. The grief and the challenges caused by infertility, miscarriage and childlessness are often unrecorded wounds that hurt more than all the others. 

We are all wounded throughout life, there’s no escaping that, a bad breakup, maybe you were bullied, maybe you got fired, maybe your parents were divorced, maybe you and a friend went separate ways. Maybe you lost a loved one. We get wounded throughout life and we all have a shoulder wound. A wound that no one knows about or no one realizes is as deep as it is, a wound that hurts more than all the other wounds. 

I connect with the Shoulder Wound of Christ through my infertility, my barrenness, my reality of being childless. It is a wound that no one sees. If someone didnt know my story and really most people that do know my story dont realize that this is my shoulder wound. The injury that hurts the most. When I learned about the Shoulder Wound of Christ I thought about how it could possibly go unseen, unknown and how could that be his most painful wound? He was scouraged, had nails driven into his body, a crown of thorns pushed into his head, he was whipped and ridiculed, betrayed and crucified but it was the shoulder wound that hurt the most. 

I have thought about why. Surely those other wounds were unimaginably painful so how could the shoulder wound be the most painful? I dont think it was because it was physically the most painful, I can only imagine having a nail driven through your feet and hands was excruciating. I think it was the most painful because it was the wound caused by carrying his cross, literally and figuratively. It was a wound that was caused by not only the sheer weight of his cross but also the constant agitation that wound experienced as rough wood splintered into his flesh and while his body and  soul must have cried out each time he stepped. It was the wound that with every step he was reminded of all the other wounds, everything that led to that moment. With each step the wound must have cried out in agony but he knew he had no choice but to take the next step forward knowing it would be excruciating. 

I think about how infertility is like this, each step is agonizing but you have no choice but to keep moving forward while dragging your cross, and your wound cries out but no one knows how much pain you are in, maybe they see the cross but rarely do they see the wound it causes. Miscarriage is the same. After a while people assume you are over it, but you carry that wound and it is deep and painful. People see your other wounds, the ones they can relate to or understand but I think the wound that is caused by the weight of our cross is overlooked because people dont see it, because it’s being hidden under the cross.  

I have done a LOT, A LOT of work on my own personal path to forward healing and most days I am successful in moving forward but it is never without pain, that’s not to say it’s not without peace or joy, but on some level the pain is always there. People do not see that pain. And as I said we all have a shoulder wound. A parent that didnt love us they way we should have been loved, a spouse that betrays you, anxiety, depression, addiction, we all have a shoulder wound. 

Jesus said this wound was not recorded by men. And what does that tell us? It tells us first and foremost no one knew about it and if they did know about it they didn’t deem it important enough to record. I think those of us on the forward healing journey feel that. It tells me if we dont tell our stories, if we dont invite others into our most wounded places no one will see those wounds as important. Jesus also said to honor his most painful wound. And we need to do the same for our own most painful wounds, we need to honor them. And the best way to honor something is to bring it to light. 

That’s scary, I know. Revealing the most painful places of our hearts is terrifying and the very idea makes those wounds hurt more. No one wants to reveal the wounds their cross makes. We usually have no trouble showing the cross but bearing the wound is a hole other level.  We are scared it will make us look weak and we are afraid if we share that wound with others they will not honor that pai. They will downplay or ignore our ache. We are afraid we will be wounded even more, so we protect that shoulder wound even more fiercely. 

But look at Christ. Do you read the story of his passion and see a weak man? No you see unreal strength, divine strength in a human body. I have heard a lot of people that doubt christ as the savior but I have never heard anyone doubt the pain he must have felt and saw him as weak. I think there are a  lot of lessons we can take from Christ’s shoulder wound but none of them are that in sharing our own deepest wound will make us look weak. Maybe people dont understand it, I am sure a lot of people would doubt his  testimony of that wound being the most painful. I think we feel that as people who have struggled with infertility, miscarriage and childlessness. They can see it hurts but I dont think people see that it is our most painful wound. They can’t see the constant agitation, splinters and brokenness. 

I return to that page in my pieta that has the prayer to the shoulder wound and the very short explanation of how we came to learn about that wound. I have read it hundreds of times. When I open my Pieta prayer book it falls to page 47 because I have worn the spine of the book so much to that page. I return to that page over and over again because on this journey we need to know we are understood, we need to know someone, anyone understands that this wound is our most painful and the wound that people don’t see. And who better to relate to then the one person who has suffered the most because of the cross they had to carry. 

I think Mary had a shoulder wound as well. Her’s was recorded though, it was when Simeon told her “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many may be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.” (Luke 2:34-35) Simeon is telling Mary that she will suffer along with her son. 

I think the shoulder wound and the sword through the soul are kindred. We all have it. The sorrow that we carry not just in our bodies or in our hearts but in our souls. When you lose a dream, when your very purpose on this earth is challenged, when your body betrays you  when your identity as a woman or a man is shaken to its core, we receive a sword through the soul, a shoulder wound. It has been revealed to us that we encounter Christ through Mary so it would make sense that we enter through Christ’s wounds, encounter his shoulder wound, first, through his mother who carried a sword in her soul. She suffered first, she was wounded by her own cross and that allows us to understand Christ’s shoulder wound and in turn it allows us to understand our own wounds.

I have shared that through my time of trying to conceive I was away from the church and if someone shared all of this with me at that time I might have rolled my eyes and then run in the opposite direction. BUT I think no matter where you are in your faith you can understand the shoulder wound. The most painful, the one that is unknown, unseen or misunderstood. No matter who you are you can relate to the wound that is the most painful and I would bet that wound is never physical. It’s always a wound of the soul. 

The wounds to the soul are the ones that hurt the most, the ones people dont see and the ones we carry like a heavy cross with every step. And people dont see them because all they see is you living life, smiling and  moving forward, they see you taking the next step so they dont realize the pain you are carrying. I think that is what Christ felt. 

Now maybe you are thinking infertility, miscarriage and childlessness is nothing compared to the wounds Christ suffered. And I would not disagree however if we can not find meaning and healing for our own wounds through Christs wounds then what was the point of his suffering? He suffered not only to save us through redemption but also so that we can begin to understand our own suffering. 

I have been able to connect deeply to Christs shoulder wound and to the sword through MAry’s heart because that is what my pain has and still does feel like. I am not being dramatic or hyperbolic. This wound is profound and brutal.  Wounds carried that no one sees, pain no one understands but I am not alone. As I said we ALL have these wounds. And I find deep comfort in knowing Christ suffered first, Mary suffered first. They carried their crosses and so must we. A life of faith does not mean a life without pain, it does not mean a life where we get everything we desire. It means there is more. It means despite our wounds those seen and unseen there is more.

I think that might be why Christ asked St. Bernard to share his most painful wound and promised those who honored his shoulder wound, the unrecorded, most painful wound, special forgiveness. I think there is profound beauty in the fact that Saint Bernard ASKED Christ what his greatest unrecorded suffering was. I have sat with that as well. Imagine if we all approach each other with the same question. Imagine how much more compassionate and kind we would be to each other. This past Sunday, the second reading was Eph 4:30

Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma. 

I am not going to claim to know what Christ was thinking or his purpose in revealing his shoulder wound. But Maybe it was, at least in part, to remind us that we all suffer and we must be kind to one another and compassionate. Perhaps he wanted to let us know that even he had a wound that was unknown and the most painful and that Jesus is God and we are made in God’s image and likeness and therefore we too, each and every one of us will have a wound like his shoulder wound caused by the cross we must bare. Maybe, I like to think so, but as I said, I am not a theologian or a biblical scholar. 

The two main themes for me here are that we all have a shoulder wound, not a single person is spared from this, because Christ was not spared but he suffered so that we could find hope and healing. The second theme is kindness and compassion and understanding. We are all wounded, some because we can not have children, because we have lost a pregnancy, because we have not found a spouse yet, some because they have a chronic illness, a failed marriage, loss of a parent, we all have a wound that no one else sees, or really sees, a wound that is a sword through our hearts and if we approach everyone like St Bernard did Christ and ask what is your most painful wound that no one sees we might start to heal each other. Now I am not suggesting you walk up to people and ask what their deepest wound is, that might be awkward, but I am suggesting you approach every person with the knowledge that they too have a shoulder wound and we all carry that wound differently. Some people shut down, some over compensate, some lash out. And Perhaps not everyone that is navigating infertility sees their infertility or their miscarriage as their shoulder wound but I think a lot of us do. Also, for those that do not have infertility or no longer do, those of you that have a different kind of shoulder wound, and if you know someone that has infertility, someone that has suffered a miscarriage or someone that desires a family and has not been able to build one for whatever reason, just remember that even though they may not be outwardly hurting, it’s very likely that is their shoulder wound so be gentle. 

We were made for each other, we were made for each other to love, by love and for love and part of that love means knowing every single one of us has a shoulder wound, it means respecting with compassion and kindness we all have the same wound Christ had, the one no one recorded, the one that is the most painful. And with that understanding we can begin to heal, we can find forward healing by understanding Christ’s wounds, by knowing Mary suffered first, and knowing we all desire, like Christ did, for others to see those wounds. 

Christ wanted us to know about his shoulder wound. He wanted us to know so we could more fully realize his humanity and his desire for us to see the unseen pain. And isn’t that what we all desire, to be seen, for someone, anyone to see the most wounded places because in being seen we can begin to heal because when we are seen we are no longer alone. 

And this forward healing, this grief journey is lonely. But it doesn’t have to be. Jesus came to show us how to live and how to suffer. You are not alone because he knows what it feels like to have a wound that is unknown and profoundly painful, you are not alone and your pain is not unseen. He sees it, he knows it, his mother knows the wound in your soul, you are not alone.

When we are grieving, when we are angry, depressed, envious, sad or frustrated, we stop seeing the wonder and awe in the world and in turn we lose sight of the desire and need for joy. 

There is so much that is lost when a miscarriage occurs, and how much time we lose as we navigate infertility and how much ache exists with childlessness. It can feel like you are operating in a constant joy deficit. We are missing something, always. We go through each day longing and desiring and we lose sight of the need to actually identify what it is we are missing. And  I dont think we realize we are missing anything other than the one thing we want, a child. But I think in the midsts of grief what we are really missing, the biggest thing we lose, is joy and joy requires wonder and awe. We need to be able to see the wonder in the world and find ourselves in awe of the people and things around us and that is where joy comes from because that is where we encounter God. And being able to seek joy in the midst of pain feels impossible. Because when you are not getting something you want so badly, when the pain is so deep the last thing you are willing to do is trust and joy requires trust. 

It’s my experience that on this particular journey we have to seek joy. And it feels unobtainable. There are days when you are so sad, so riddled with pain that it feels like you will never be happy again and that the only thing that will make you  happy, truly happy is to have everything work out the way you desire it. And you can find yourself in this place for years. For years you can stay in a place of longing and never fully enjoying life, you end up in a holding pattern waiting for happiness, real happiness. And you can convince yourself the only thing that will bring you real happiness and real joy is a child. And honestly I think everyone, even those not actively  grieving can experience this. 

We can desire something with so much intensity that we lose sight of anything else when we become immersed in our desire and our pain to a level that nothing else could possibly bring satisfaction, nothing else but the one thing we long for, whether its a baby, a house, a spouse, wash board abs, a boyfriend, a certain lifestyle, a car, whatever it is you find your self continuing to seek, search, and fight to obtain that one thing that you believe will be the only way you can find satisfaction and we tend to  think that satisfaction will bring us joy.

Now I am not trying to compare the desire for a child with the desire to have a bigger house, my point is we can allow anything, big or small, to interfere with finding joy. So let’s define joy. Peter Kreeft, a Phd professor of philosophy at Boston College wrote that Pleasure is in the body. Happiness is in the mind and feelings. Joy is deep in the heart, the spirit, the center of the self. The way to pleasure is power and prudence, The way to happiness is moral goodness, The way to joy is sanctity, loving God with your whole heart and your neighbor as well.  

Let’s look at these three things, pleasure, happiness and joy in relation to the grief and longing. How many of you have eaten a huge piece of cake, a bowl of ice cream or a bag of doritos because you were sad or maybe because you were celebrating, you were trying to fill a space inside you inside you with pleasure. Something physical, but I am going to bet afterwards you probably beat yourself up a little or found that empty space we still empty. Happiness, sounds great right we want to be happy, and it’s important to remember that happiness as Kreeft says is in the mind, in the feelings. So we seek things that will ease our mind and make us feel good about ourselves. We surround ourselves with things that invoke the feelings of happiness and that is not a bad thing, however it’s still not joy. And it is joy that we really seek. Kreeft says that joy is loving god with your whole heart and your neighbor as well. That’s where joy is. But in order to love, we must first trust and in order to trust we must let go. 

Joy is found on the other side of letting go. We have to release our desires and trust that God will lead us to where we need to be, where we will find him, love him, trust and there we find joy. And remember, letting go does not mean giving up. Think about how you receive something, do you approach someone giving you something with crossed arms and clenched fists? No you open your hands in  order to receive it. When we are holding tight to something, a dream, a desire, a person, a hope, we do it with clenched hands for fear that if we let go we will lose the tiny bit of control we have on our desire but we forget that in order to receive we must let go and open our hands. That is not giving up, that is letting go in order to receive something that might look different but is none the less a gift. 

When we talk about redefining, renewing and reclaiming all of these things require letting go. You have to let go of the anger, the sadness and the envy. You have to let go of the notion that you know best the path your life should take, you have to let go of the fear and skepticism and the hardest I think is to let go of the expectation. 

You have to be actively willing  to see the beauty all around you and look beyond your own desires. Again I do not in any way mean to diminish the desire for a child, that desire is real, it is emotional, physical and spiritual. And there is nothing wrong with that desire. Where we enter into a danger zone is when we make anything other than loving God the lynch pin for our happiness, our joy, that’s when we put ourselves in danger. 

Look, I will never understand why God didn’t give me a child, never. And there is a part of me that will always long for what could have been, a part of me that will always grieve on some level for the child I miscarried and the children I never had but I have come to learn that that desired outcome for a child can not be where my joy and happiness comes from. It can’t. I tried that, I tried tying my joy and happiness to that dream to that desire and when it didnt happen I became fractured in a way I didnt think I could ever be whole again. 

I think that happens with a lot of people, maybe all of us on some level. When we become emotionally fractured to a point where it feels like we are about to come apart and in some instances perhaps we do come apart we can stall out there. We can become immersed so deeply in our grief that we convince ourselves that there is no happiness or joy beyond the thing we desire most. And that’s where I found myself, convinced I would never be happy or joyful unless I had this dream come true. 

And this is tough to say especially when referencing a child, but we feel that way because whether we admit it or not the reason we feel that absence of happiness and joy is because we are putting that thing we desire most, even a child, ahead of our love and trust in God. 

I know deeply devote people that would cringe at this statement because they are praying and turning to God every step of their grief so I understand my assessment could sting a little. But when we say we trust God, but then put up a barrier where we resist happiness and joy because we are not gifted with the thing we desire, even a child, we are not fully trusting God. Ok I know that’s a hard thing to hear, it’s a hard thing to say and it took me a really really long time to realize this and I still struggle with it . But I believe it’s true. If we stop working towards happiness and joy especially when we are suffering, on some level we are not trusting God. 

Look, I get it, maybe more than most, when you are begging and pleading with God you might be tempted to think you are surrendering to God and therefore loving and trusting him. But I think true surrender is when in the midst of our pain and suffering we can say, this sucks, this hurts, I do not understand why but I trust you God and even if I do not get the thing I desire most, I will trust in your love and trust you will sustain me and in that place, together with God we can begin to redefine, reclaim and renew happiness and joy. 

It’s still going to hurt, and there will still be the desire but you need to find a way,  through God to let go, and when you can let go, trusting that maybe you will be given what you desire and maybe you wont, that regardless of the outcome, you can and will find happiness and joy. 

So let’s get back to the wonder and awe. Look at children, they are wild and free, for the most part, They don’t over analyze they take everything in the moment, sure there are some kids that struggle but the vast majority of children, at least up to a certain age, are blissfully unaware of the carnage around them. They have little or no cares in the world. Why? Because they live in a state of Let Go. And they can live that way  Because they trust their parents. They know their parents are going to protect them feed them love them, care for them, carry them. And they know this without actually consciously thinking about it. They just know so they have a freedom adults lose. Because they trust. Maybe they don’t get everything they desire but they know each day they dont have to worry about much. And God wants the same for us as adults, he wants us to trust he will sustain us and we dont need to shut down and clench our fists. We need to turn to trust him like a child trusts a parent. Not always understanding why we can or can not do something but letting go and trusting Him as a father. 

I think there is some serious irony in looking to children for an example of joy and happiness to an audience desiring a child. But God is funny sometimes. 

Now you dont, well maybe some people do, but most people dont go from deep grief to abundant joy in an instant or by sheer will. There are a lot of steps in between.  And that’s where forward healing, redefining reclaiming and renewing comes in. It’s a process. It’s letting go of the expectation you have created for the outcome of the one thing you desire. We can become emotionally dependent on achieving pregnancy and delivering a child. And we cling to the expectation of success and it can become an obsession. When we become so fixated on one thing it is really hard to see beyond that thing and it can make you feel manic, you might be ok one second but then suddenly and dramatically devastated the next and it is a violent emotional pendulum that usually swings way to far on the grief side. 

So going from unfulfilled expectations, grief, sadness and clenching your fists straight to letting go and trusting God entirely is probably not going to happen overnight or even over the course of a few days. It’s going to be more like months or even years. Probably years. This wound, this grief is deep, so deep you might not be in a place to even realize you can’t see beyond it. It will take time, give yourself some grace, You need to start small. But you need to start. For your own sake, for the sake of your heart and those you love, for the sake of your relationship with God you need to start to find ways to make the Joy deficit smaller. 

There are a few ways you can start the letting go process. Each person is different you need to work towards what works best for you and it might take a few times to figure that out AND it might be several different things that change and evolve as you move closer to seeking happiness and joy. Begin with just the idea that maybe you could be happy and find joy no matter what the outcome is. It’s just a thought, just being open to the idea. Start there. That’s it just open yourself to that thought. Again you are not giving up, you can still actively try to have a child or another child, but this releasing, the leaning into the idea that your happiness and joy can be discovered no matter your ultimate outcome. Just be open to the idea. That’s it.

While you are starting to open up to the possibility of happiness and joy even if things dont turn out the way you plan them or desire them, i would invite you to do something challenging, physically. For me it was yoga. Perhaps for you  it’s rock climbing or running a mile, maybe it’s hiking, try something that will challenge you physically that you can work towards improvement, something that really takes you out of your comfort zone. I think this is helpful because we can get down on ourselves because our bodies are not working the way we want them to. When you can do hard things physically it gives you a sense of control back and it also shows you that your body can do hard things and it can help you begin to reclaim your control, your self confidence and strength. 

Maybe you start to trust God a bit more. Perhaps you think you already do and I am sure you do on some level, but just go a little further. Now trusting God does not mean you throw up your hands and let Jesus take the Wheel while you sit in the backseat and take a nap. You still work, you still plan you still pray but you trust God all along the way so if something does not go according to your plan you can open the space to trust that maybe God has an alternate route for you. Start with little things, when you are stuck in traffic in stead of getting angry and frustrated trust that you are being made to wait for a reason, A meeting gets cancelled and you have time on your hands, trust God is working in that space. Just start with the little things and make it a habit, a discipline and I assure you in time you will begin to let go and trust him with the bigger things. In the words of Padre Pio, pray, hope don’t worry and this can help you begin to renew what hope looks like for you. 

As you work towards deepening your trust for God, your love for him will grow and when you have that deeper trust and love, letting go becomes easier, Sometimes you won’t even know it’s happening and when you are able to let go, even just a little, you can begin to redefine where you find happiness and joy.

I hope you can see how this is all connected. We lose our wonder and awe as we age but especailly when find ourselves in active grieving 

, and when we lose that child like wonder and awe it illuminates to us that we are missing happiness and most importantly joy in our lives as we struggle. We hold back, clench our hands and cling to our deepest desire, and that is not wrong seeking our deepest desire is not wrong but clenching and clutching to only that desire and not trusting God will result in us staying in a state of joy deficit. And we all feel that don’t we, the joy deficit, on some level at all times it’s there. The more we clench our fists the deeper that deficit can feel.  By working towards letting go and trusting God we begin to regain the happiness and joy and in return we start to see that wonder and awe again or at least the potential for it to return to our lives and our hearts and through letting go we can begin to reclaim, renew and redefine ourselves and our relationship with God, which in turn increases our joy which is always and directly tied to our willingness and ability to trust and love God regardless of our circumstances. I invite you to trust more than you fear, open your hands just a bit and be open to receiving a little more joy but letting go and trusting God to fill the joy deficit you are feeling.