by Katie Schuermann
To this day, I am barren and resting in the Lord’s will.
Does it surprise you to learn that I have no regrets in resting in the Lord’s will all of these years, even though I have no children?
In fact, I not only have no regrets, I also rejoice in my life! For in waiting on the Lord to give or to withhold the gift of children from me, I have received unexpected, unimaginable blessings from His hand.
I would like to repeat for clarity’s sake: I have received unexpected, unimaginable blessings from God’s hand, not from my own, and the goodness of being on the receiving end of the Creator’s gifts is a joy that is deep and mysterious and difficult for me to express. Still, I keep trying to find words to articulate this profound mystery, for if I remain silent, others may misunderstand that, in my decision not to try to produce my own children through IVF, I am somehow left childless, joyless, comfortless, and purposeless in life.
So let me try to explain it again.
It is good to a creature. It is restful to have a Creator.
To be a creature with a Creator — to live out my days in a prayerful, expectant posture of receiving gifts from the Creator — means that I get to receive good gifts from God, whatever those gifts may be. I may plead for one gift in particular (read: children), but even not being given children is a receiving of sorts. For in this case, I am receiving from God my Father the gift of “no,” and this gift disciplines me, teaches me, sanctifies me, chastens me, forms me, grows me, and conditions me to look to Him, to pray to Him, to cry out to Him, to wait on Him, to trust in Him, to receive from Him, and, yes, to delight in Him and in what He gives.
Don’t get me wrong. It hurts to be childless, and so I wrestle with God. But as I beat my fists against His chest and rage against His powerful withholding, He succeeds in freeing me from being a slave to my own wishes and desires. In making me childless, He literally breaks the bonds that hold me captive to my own passions, and then He reaches for me and bids me, weary and heavy laden, to come to Him and rest.
God reorders my affections in barrenness, and in doing so, He restores me to Himself.
Which means, in my barrenness, I find rest in the Lord.
How can I fully express the relief that comes, not in being barren but in being made barren? For in laying the cross of barrenness upon my shoulders, God actually relieves me of the heavy burden of producing children for myself. Put another way, since giving children is God’s work, then it is not for me to give them to myself. I simply abide in His giving and withholding, and in looking to the work of His hands rather than my own for value and vocation in this life, I rest from my laboring.
And while I rest, He blesses me.
He blesses me, not with children but with unexpected, unimaginable gifts.
Are you ready to be scandalized?
I would not trade those unexpected, unimaginable gifts from God for any child I might try to make with my own hands.
Why? Because it is so very good to be a creature. God said so in the Garden of Eden, and He continues to prove it to me and to you over and over again in this present age.
Still unclear?
Then I probably need to describe to you some of those unexpected, unimaginable gifts given to me by God in my barrenness. They will blow your mind.
But I’ll leave that for another post.
If your conscience is burdened because you used IVF, know that you are not alone in your regrets. The apostle Paul teaches us in his letter to the Romans that “none is righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). He also writes that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Please, talk to your pastor or a trusted Christian friend about your regrets, and put your faith in Jesus’ words from the cross about His work of salvation on our behalf: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Because of Christ’s mercy, we can live our lives looking backward in repentance yet forward in hope.
