Mirabel Madrigal is the only member of her extraordinary family who didn't receive a magical gift. If you've walked the road of infertility, you know exactly what that feels like. Young Mirabel approaches her magical door on the night she's supposed to receive her gift. Her family gathers. And then... nothing. The door disappears. She becomes the only Madrigal without a gift in a family where gifts define identity and value. I remember my own "door ceremony." Each month, the

Christ's glorified body bore the marks of His suffering, not as ongoing pain, but as eternal testimony. Our scars from infertility might not be things God erases in eternity, but things He transforms. Not sources of ongoing pain, but testimonies of His faithfulness through suffering. We don't worship a God who erases our stories. We worship a God who redeems them, scars and all.

I sat in the pew, raw and bleeding. How could no one see this wound? Then, during Communion, we began to sing the Anima Christi. I've sung this prayer countless times before, but something shifted when we reached the line: "Within your wounds hide me." The words pierced through me. Why would we ask to be hidden inside wounds? Wounds are places of pain, of brokenness, of vulnerability. They're the last place anyone would choose as a hiding spot.