Infertility and the Church

Prayer groups, lists, meetings...All filled with requests of people suffering physically from illness, cancer, or other physical limitations. 

                    So why not infertility? 

We pray for loved ones to be healed of illnesses when Drs have given them a life limiting prognosis, knowing full well that the Great Physican and all Powerful Healer can perform this work despite what man and science have to say. So why not pray for the couple given the diagnosis of infertility? The ones broken by this 'physical limitation'? God has just as much power to give a childless couple children as He does to cure cancer. After all did He not prove it over and over in the Bible? Elizabeth, Hannah, Sarah. 

We fill our prayer lists with life or death situations...Why not this one? 

             After all it is a situation of LIFE.

Maybe it's because no one really knows the couple deals with this issue. In a sea of "be fruitful and multiplies" they feel ashamed. Perhaps believing that God is punishing them for some sin. (I don't personally believe this, I believe that Jesus took the final punishment for our sins on the cross and everything is under the blood, though sometimes The Lord allows us to endure the consequences of our actions. However I know that some folks from the college I attended believe the doctrine of "it may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but watch out because 'God's gonna git ya for what you did'.)

Or maybe it is the uttermost importance placed on having children by the church and those around them in the church. Program after program dedicated to children. Children's church, Awana, Sunday School programs, MOPS groups. Or the service that every woman that struggles with infertility dreads...Mothers Day. When the majority of churches only celebrate mothers with living children. Not those with a mother's heart who wishes to conceive or are childless due to loss. 

After all "children are a blessing from The Lord". All the while one woman sits in the pew week after week praying "Lord where's my blessing?"

So this week as you attend your mid-week prayer meetings or pray through your "list" in your quiet time, please remember everyone with physical needs even if they remain unspoken. 

Patience

Recently I have been doing word studies in my personal Bible study. I choose a word, then using the concordance in the back of my Bible I look up each reference listed for that word. I make sure to read the verses surrounding the one containing the word to gain context, as well as look up the cross reference verses, to make sure that I am applying the verse correctly. So far I have studied hope, waiting, and patience. While studying the word patience I was surprised at how it is used in the Bible and it's meaning. 

I had always pictured patience as being very passive. Remember when you were little and you wanted to do something and you were squirming just waiting to do what you wanted to do? And your mom would tell you to "be still, be quiet, and be patient." Well by it's very definition patience is very active and painful. Surprised? I was. 

Patience is defined as: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay; the quality of being patient as the bearing of pain. Many of the verses in the Bible that mention patience the word is used as a synonym for endurance or perseverance eg. Heb. 10:36, Heb. 12:1, James 5:11, Rom. 5:3. 

Endurance is defined as: the fact or power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way. Perseverance is similar in its definition. 

I used to think that if we felt pain during a time of being patient somehow we weren't truly being patient. We hadn't given our desires over to God or we would not be feeling this internal struggle. As it says in Romans 5:3, "we glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation worketh patience." As well as James 1:2-3, "...count it all joy when ye fall into [various trials]: Knowing this that [they] [produce] patience." But endurance and perseverance are by their very definition painful. These verses aren't calling us to live in a bubble of denial that what we are experiencing while being patient isn't painful, but rather to rejoice through the pain. 

Whether you are waiting to conceive, waiting for an adoption to become final, waiting for your mate, or the perfect job. Waiting takes perserverence and it hurts. I think my favorite definition that I found during this study is a definition of patiently: bearing or enduring pain, difficulty, or annoyance, with calmness. The only way we will find that calmness through the pain and difficulty is with God's help. 

Psalm 37:7 "Rest in The Lord and wait patiently for Him: fret not thyself..."

Both Abraham and David are examples of patience while waiting for God's promises to them to be fulfilled.  Psalm 40:1 "I waited patiently for The Lord and He inclined unto me and heard my cry." Hebrews 6:15 "And so after he had patiently endured he obtained the promise." Remember God loves us just as much as He did Abraham and David and He is the same today as He was thousands of years ago when they were living. He will fulfill His promises to His children we must only be patient. 

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Each Month

If you are struggling to conceive you understand the monthly roller coaster of emotions: hope, anticipation, fear, disappointment, sadness, and grief.

Each month we try...

Each month we hope...

Each month we pray...

Each month we wait...


Each month starts out with fresh hope for new life, and when it ends in disappointment each month we grieve the chance for that life. Another month gone, another chance for a child gone.

With the start of each cycle the emotions of the miscarriages come back.  All hope for that month lost... It's as if the hope that each new month brings is like a bandaid placed over the wound of losing our two children. Then with each appearance of a new cycle the bandaid is ripped off, exposing the wound once again, fresh and bloody.

Each month regardless of disappointment after disappointment we pick ourselves up and try again.

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paloetic/4718653501/">paloetic</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

Contentment

                I have recently taken up running…I know. This from the girl that always said that she hated running and that any exercise that involved the act of picking one's foot up off the ground was too much work. Strength training and ellipticals were my best friends. However now I find myself running several times per week and actually enjoying it! Running is freeing, cleansing…both to the body and to the mind.

Today while running I found myself thinking of a topic that has been on my mind a lot recently:  infertility and contentment.

What does it look like to be truly content no matter your current circumstances? What does it mean to be truly content?

Well I went to the dictionary to get the definition. Contentment is defined as the state of being content. The word content is therefore defined as: “desiring no more than what one has; satisfied; ready to accept one's circumstances.”

I never thought that I would struggle with infertility. I thought that was only something that non-Christians dealt with. After all God mandates in His Word for us to “be fruitful and multiply”. A lot of Christian families are actually looked down upon because they have rather large families. Over and over in the Bible God puts an emphasis on children and the blessing that they are. Psalm 127:3, “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” For a woman in Bible times to be barren was a disgrace. Matthew 1:24-25, “And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.”

 I did not consider myself as someone who struggled with infertility even after my first miscarriage. It was treated as such a common thing for someone to have. But now I find myself unable to conceive after 9 months of trying and a second miscarriage. I thought that infertile couples were those who couldn’t get pregnant at all. But now I’m realizing that there is more than one definition of infertility. Following my miscarriages people have made the comment “well at least you know you can get pregnant”, and somehow that’s supposed to be comforting, when in fact it’s not. Just because my body is capable of conceiving does not mean that it is capable of carrying that baby in the womb.

This is not a topic that is talked about in Christian circles due to several reasons I believe. First of all like myself, we don’t believe that this could happen to someone who is serving God. After all as mentioned before God mandates us to have children! Also who better for God to bless with children than those who love Him and will strive to raise them in a godly manner?  Second, is this issue of contentment. I have been hesitant to share because people will think I am just being discontent with the circumstances that God has given me at this time.

HE created this empty place in my heart and only HE can fill it. Having children was not even on my radar until we lost the first one.

But for now I must wait and be content.  

Content is…

…Not forgetting our two children that I cannot wait to meet in heaven. I don’t get to be their mom here on earth but I will one day get to be their mom.

  …Enjoying every day that my husband and I have together to ourselves, because children do change things.

…Being happy for my friends when God blesses them with healthy children.

…Not judging when I see other mothers with children and asking why them and not me. I don’t know their struggles. I don’t know how many children they have lost or how long it took before God blessed them with the child they have.

…Hope. That one day God will fulfill His promise.

Contentment is not something that will magically happen when I have children. There will always be a sense of imbalance in this world until God comes and creates the new heaven and new earth. Those who have children will have struggles with being tired, worries, etc. and will take the blessing of their family for granted. Those without children will continue to long for them.

I never want to forget. When God does finally bless us with children I don’t want to find myself one day tired, upset, and taking my family for granted. But I know it will come…

Those are the days I want to look back and remember the struggle I had before they came into this world.