I was talking to a friend yesterday, and she said, “So, how are the infertility treatments going?”

Yeah, this friend doesn’t always pay attention to what I say, or what is, in reality, happening in my life. I am not actually doing any infertility treatments, at all. In fact, technically, I’m not even what you would consider infertile. I’m just getting really good at having miscarriages, and the doctors haven’t figured out why. I told her this, and she said, in a glib and almost happy tone, “Well, maybe all of this is just a test.”

I’ve heard a lot of things about why I’m having miscarriages, and people have said all sorts of awkward, silly, and insensitive things, but this one was new. A test? A test of what? My nerves of steel, my strength of will, my uterine lining? I told her if this was a test, I’m ready to pass and get my prize. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think the Lord works that way.

Then she said, “But hasn’t all of this made you a better person?”

Hmm…a better person. Is that what adversity is supposed to do? It’s God’s plan to make us better?

I told her I wasn’t sure if it made me a better person. It’s changed me, surely, and she said, “Well, that’s better, right?”

Well, I’m not sure about that, either. Sometimes the change meant that I was angry at God, and that can’t be better. Sometimes the change meant that I felt so depressed that I had trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and surely that’s not better. This friend, who has also suffered a miscarriage as well as the death of her own mother, insisted that all of those things that happened to her have made her a better person. I was stunned that she would insist that losing her mother improved her life, and say it with such cheerfulness, but maybe this is her way of dealing with it all.

Me, I’m just wondering, if this is a test, what exactly it is that the Lord thinks I lack that I have to learn it with such painful lessons? And isn’t there an easier way to learn them? Maybe there’s not. Maybe the only way to become who God needs us to become is give us trials, and maybe there is some sort of reward at the end, even if it means waiting until we meet God to get it.

For the record, though, if this is some kind of test, I would, in fact, like it to be over so I can get my prize. And I would actually prefer the prize to be given to me here, on this earth, in the form of a sibling for my child. That’s just me, though.