by Katie Schuermann
I was unprepared.
I mean, I understand how it works. Eventually, ovaries run out of eggs. Every girl knows this from her very first period onward, and she somewhat cheerfully anticipates the ending of the diva-like cycles that storm onto the stage of her life, punch her in the gut, cramp her style, and make a mess of her dressing room.
She also knows that these cycles are part of God’s mysterious, marvelous design, and that amidst them, Lord willing, comes the opportunity to conceive and bear children.
No wonder our cycles stomp and shake their fists when there is no child in the womb! Even our periods know what is good and groan with the rest of creation under the burden of sin.
But back to my ovaries.
As the decades wore on, I somewhat began to welcome the idea of the Great Change, even managing to greet the manic, perimenopausal shifts in my menses’ quantity and quality with humor if not actual grace. For amidst my hot flashing, I could recognize God’s mercy to me in granting my petition to make it through the remainder of my estrogenic years without needing another surgery. This mercy was no light thing for me, this being granted enough health to exit the stage the scripted way, with all of my props still in hand.
But though I could celebrate God’s good gifts of an intact uterus and floatie-free ovaries, I was unprepared for the death-sentence that is menopause.
A few years ago, when a nurse, giggling convivially, announced my post-menopausal status to me over the phone as if it were my greatest triumph, I could not return her laugh. My lips, my tongue, my lungs, my heart, my very cells were frozen and immovable like some vast tundra. A horrible, tomb-like cold was emanating from my womb, and my very soul frosted over.
I tell you, it felt like I was gestating an ice pack, and the rivers of my blood froze in my veins.
My fertility was dead. It was laid out before me as if in a casket. I was viewing the dead, and my mortality shivered from the frigid reality of my barrenness.
Barren forever. Barren forevermore. For all eternity.
Never before had immortality seemed so terrible, so final.
It took me awhile to recover my wits that day, for my womb taunted me on repeat: “I am the same barren womb yesterday, today, and forever.”
And I would have despaired — would still be despairing today as I write this post — were it not for the fact that my eternal barrenness is washed and redeemed by regenerative Baptismal waters.
In this alone I have hope.
For my barren womb is not the only thing in my life that is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus the Christ — the Righteous, the Fruitful — also is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and when Pastor Newman poured water over my head and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” I put on Jesus the Christ, the Righteous, the Fruitful. In my Baptism, Jesus took my barrenness upon Himself and gave me His blessed fruitfulness in exchange.
Which means, though my cycles have made their final bow and exited the stage for good, I am more than just a closed show. I continue to walk this earth as one fruitful. Jesus’ blessed goodness, mercy, love, hope, peace, and joy remain the same in my life yesterday, today, and forever.
And when I no longer walk this earth but rest from my labors in my grave, Jesus’ omnipotent sameness will call my name on the Last Day and raise my barren body to new life — to eternal vitality and fruitfulness — never mind my womb.
Fruitful forever. Fruitful forevermore. For all eternity.
