Faith Is Worse Than A Foreign Language

At least you can explain, describe, and teach a foreign language. It is impossible to teach Faith. Even to your parents. My mother has been trying, for many years and several kids, to convince me that the size of my family is my responsibility; and that if I decide not to have any more kids, I have it in my power to alter my body to make it so. God created my body for His Purpose. I don't know if it is His purpose for me to have my mother's ideal-sized family, which of course we passed a long time ago. And, as I don't have an inside track on the Plan, I've come to the conclusion that the One Who has the Plan should be in charge of such things. Mom says I need to take responsibility, stop having kids, thus stop taking risks that come along with having kids past age 40. I know she's only concerned about me. But she just doesn't understand that God is in control. Whenever He is in control, the Plan is always followed, even when we humans mess things up. Under His control, in a marriage created by Him, I believe I can only mess up if I try to take control away from Him (which, of course, nobody can really do since, as the Bible teaches us, He can take the most reticent opposition and turn it around to work for Him, but that's another Theological discussion entirely). Thus, I haven't altered the arrangement He created 17 years ago. I refuse to tell God that I won't have the family He has in mind for me.

That last sentence, above, usually ends the conversation with Mom. And that is what's so upsetting. She doesn't get it. I want to teach her the Faith that she raised me in. That's very ironic, isn't it? I was raised Catholic, but I wasn't taught my Faith. I was taught how to act Catholic. I became a Catholic, not by learning all the Catholic stuff we Catholics do, which I will defend to the end because it all got me to where I am now, but by being given the gift of Faith in the LORD. My mother, who did her duty, raised her kids in the Catholic Church, without, obviously, believing a word of it. I hope this doesn't come across as bitter toward my mother. I pray every day that she allows the Holy Spirit to teach her and change her, especially after spending 10 days in the hospital for a condition nobody has yet to clearly explain. She, herself, believes she had a near-death experience, and yet she will not seek out Jesus, and gets angry when I try to explain to her what obviously cannot be explained to someone who does not have the ears to hear or the eyes to see...yet. I keep praying, and I guess that's all I'm supposed to do.