Question Submitted: My husband and I have been undergoing fertility treaments since February 2011. We married a little later in life as we both were in foreign missions, but we finally met while working on the same mission field. After trying to start a family for a year-and-a-half, we consulted a doctor. She realized that I wasn’t ovulating. After 6 months of treatment, she recommended a fertility specialist. We worked with him for a year, then recently moved to another city. We found a clinic specializing in fertlility treatments. This was our first month of treatment. Yesterday, we received the results of our pregnancy test – negative. I feel hollow and have lost hope. My husband is an amazing partner and is constantly leading us in God’s Word. I am asking for your prayers for strength to accept God’s will. I would love to talk to other women who have gone through this or are going through this.

Sister, you’ve got our prayers for strength to accept God’s will. In Jesus’ name+, amen.

And you are most definitely not alone. Know that the entire Church prays for you. Know that Christ sits at the right hand of God and intercedes on your behalf. Know that the Holy Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words whenever you are too burdened to form the words yourself.

And know that there is a community of women, like yourself, who are praying the same prayer for their own lives. They, too, grieve their negative pregnancy tests and desperately put their faith in God’s good will for them even in their childlessness. These women want to meet you and listen to you and cry with you and share with you their own stories. These women met last summer in St. Louis for The Great Getaway, and, God willing, we hope to do the same year after year.

Won’t you please join us? (We’ll be in touch soon with details about The Great Getaway 2014.)

In the meantime, is there a pastor in your local mission field to whom you can go and speak about your hopes and disappointments and grief? He is Christ’s man there for you, and he wants to help bear your pain. He wants to comfort you with the Words of eternal life, pray with you as you wait on the Lord, and put Christ’s own pain-bearing flesh on your tongue.