Marian Helper • Fall 2025 • Marian.org 27 Worries I hadn’t expected to cry. I tried not to. But I had been awake since around 3 in the morning, worrying about my baby. At 45 years old, I knew there was a good chance this pregnancy would not make it to term. And there were signs that it might already be over. My midwife had done her best to reassure me. If I was having normal pregnancy symptoms and my hormone levels were within range, things would most likely turn out well, she said. But I was not having normal pregnancy symptoms. The symptoms I was having were not normal at all, not for me. And now, here I was, sitting in the phlebotomist’s chair so my hormone levels could be measured. And the tears came. “I’m afraid,” I choked out. “I’m afraid it’s already too late.” The phlebotomist’s face turned grave, her voice soothing and concerned. “OK,” she said gently. “Well, we’re going to find out what’s going on.” I nodded dumbly as she tied the tourniquet around my arm. God’s plan “And I can tell you one thing for sure,” she added, with new firmness. “God planned for you to be the mother of these seven children, and whatever happens, you will be able to handle it.” God planned this. I will be able to handle it. I clung to her words over the next few days, as the test results and my body itself confirmed what I had feared: we had lost the baby. That little one, whom I would have given anything to hold and raise as I had the other six, had lived a brief life whose every hour had been planned by God. Even if it had not been planned by us. Before this unexpected pregnancy, my husband and I had believed we had sufficiently serious reasons to use Natural Family Planning (NFP), in accordance with Church teaching. When I laid those reasons before our pastor in the confessional, he agreed. But a surprising thing happened after we learned we had conceived. All at once, the obstacles before which our childbearing had come to a halt did not seem as great as they once had. When I nervously told my husband about the pregnancy, he was overjoyed, waving away all mention of those obstacles. “It will be awesome,” he said. “Everything will work out.” God had planned this, and we would be able to handle it. Open to life I once read that being open to life means being open to everything, including death. The blessing of that child brought with it both the thrill of receiving and the terrible ache of losing. After the miscarriage, there was no talk of resuming NFP. Instead, in the sad silence, there was unspoken agreement: We would eagerly accept any more gifts God chose to send us. Well, He did. Our son, Tirian Michael, was born on March 25, 2025 — the Solemnity of the Annunciation, when the Church remembers the day a young girl received the astonishing news that God’s plan for her was both unsettling and unthinkably magnificent, and that, only by the grace of that same God, she would be able to handle it all. Tirian was baptized on April 27, the Feast of the Divine Mercy, a day whose graces are known and available to us because another young girl, surprised by Jesus’ voice calling her in the midst of a village dance, obediently left her family and boarded a train from her home in the Polish countryside to the city of Warsaw. Helena Kowalska knew nothing about where she was to go or what she was to do there, except that the Lord would show her a convent. When He guided her to the very door, she was denied entrance. Alone in a large city, Helena followed the Lord’s promptings to a place where she could live and work until the time came for her to become one of His brides and, one day, the Secretary who would remind the world of His fathomless Mercy. He had planned it all, and with His help, she handled it. Trust and receive My husband and I named our son after the last king of Narnia in C.S. Lewis’ beloved fantasy series. In The Last Battle, young King Tirian leads his beleaguered people in fighting to uphold the noble principles for which Narnia has always stood. Tirian has never seen Aslan (the Christ figure in this imaginary world), but he never loses faith in Aslan or abandons his teachings, even when many of his Narnian subjects have been duped into doing so. Tirian knows that his Lord has a plan, and that as king he can, must, and will handle his part. Through the Divine Mercy Image, Jesus pleads with His people to trust Him. “ he more a soul trusts,” He told St. Faustina, “the more it will receive” (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 1578). The more a soul trusts, the more grace it will receive to handle whatever He has planned for it, which is always life, and that in abundance. “I can tell you one thing for sure. God planned for you to be the mother of these seven children, and whatever happens, you will be able to handle it.”
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