It’s gross.
It might even be a bit inappropriate.
But I’m still going to say it.
Weeping and gnashing your teeth and throwing your hands in the air and asking unanswerable questions is a bit like belching. It releases some of the pressure that has built up in the digestion of grief.
So, on behalf of all the barren women grieving around you, I would like to say, “Excuse me.”
America is still in the slave market, and it’s called third-party reproduction.
With enough money, American citizens can go out and buy every ingredient on the “How to Make a Baby” recipe and create their own person to love and to cherish and to, well, to grade and to abuse and to legally discriminate and to throw away and to terminate and to deny any personal right to gamete donor information. We as a nation no longer sail across the ocean to capture and enslave human beings. We simply do it right here in a petri dish in the land of the free and the brave.
“IVF is the new cotton gin,” writes Alana S. Newman in her recent article The Mother-Free Money Tree. “Let’s learn from history and kick this before it takes us to the terrible places we once were.”
Yes, let’s.
But, be ready, friends. “[T]he rights of children are in direct conflict with the agenda of the fertility industry and its clients,” (Newman) so this is going to be an uphill battle. Yet, fight we must, because third-party reproduction is human trafficking only on a much bigger, legally-sanctioned scale.
Speaking of The Great Getaway last summer, we were also blessed to have a pastor talk with us about what God’s Word has to say about suffering. I found these particular truths to be helpful:
On losing our children…
“This is the problem God had. His children were lost, and He gave His Son to get them back. He gets us.”
On why we suffer…
“We suffer and have crosses so that God’s work can be made manifest.”
“This is the nature of the Christian life: that out of death comes life.”
We were blessed to have an OB-Gyn speak with us at The Great Getaway last summer. Here is a collection of some of the wise tidbits he shared with us:
On infertility…
“Fertility is one of those areas in life where God has us where He wants us. We have to lay it down. We have to give it to God. Who ultimately is in control? It’s not me [the doctor]; it’s not you and your husband; God is the one in control.”
“Infertility is a cross. It’s the cross God has given us. We are to bear our crosses.”
“We can’t even claim to understand why this is happening. This is a wound only God can heal.”
“No matter what happens, your Father loves you. Your Father has your best in mind.”
“Our culture says, ‘I have a right to have my 2.2 children when I want them. Children are things.’ We do not have a right to have children…Children are a precious gift from God.”
“If we had something that worked 100% of the time, then we would lose the awe and wonder of creation.”
On IVF…
“Infertility is not a disease. It is a symptom of a problem. IVF circumvents that problem. Let’s figure out the problem rather than circumvent the problem.”
“Who in the world do we think we are in saying that someone is a Grade D embryo?”
“For every baby that is born through IVF, between 20 to 30 are lost.”
The cost? “$15,000-$18,000 per cycle”
On why life begins at conception…
“Genetically, that embryo is not the mom; that embryo is not the dad. That’s a new person.”
On whether or not the pill ever acts as an abortifacient…
“If it happens once, isn’t that too many?”
I received a Christmas picture-card from a Great Getaway friend with the following inscription:
“These things I have spoken to you that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
God gives us just what we need at exactly the time we need it. Life is full of ups and downs and we thank you for being in our lives. Wishing you and your family a blessed and happy new year.
Isn’t that lovely? No bragging, no complaining, no commiserating. Just the blessed, simple, gracious truth.
Thank you, Jill. I need to take Christmas newsletter-writing lessons from you.
My husband said this to me the other day:
We have to deal with our false gods. That’s what God does with us. He makes us confront our false gods and see how they actually fail us.
In my barrenness, God makes me confront my false god of control, for, up to this moment, there is not a single thing I have been able to do to control my barrenness and give myself the gift of a child through conception or adoption.
Nor have you been able to do it.
Hear that? That’s the sound of my big-bellied, false god falling off my mantle and shattering onto the floor.
And for that, I thank God for my barrenness.
I love the movie Shadowlands (1993), especially the line author C.S. Lewis says in response to his clergy-friend-named-Harry’s canned explanation of the unexpected good news of Lewis’s wife’s cancer being in remission.
Harry: I know how hard you’ve been praying. Now, God is answering your prayers.
Lewis: That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself; I pray because I’m helpless; I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.
Touché, Mr. Lewis.
Nurse: Do you have any children?
Me: We have not been blessed with any children, and I’m thinking maybe it won’t happen at this point.
Nurse: Oh, now, I don’t know. I have many friends who have done IVF, and, then, when they stopped trying and finally relaxed, they got pregnant.
Me: Well, my husband and I’ve never done IVF, so we’ve been relaxing for over eleven years, now. We’ve probably earned a black belt in relaxation.
Nurse: But, still, you never know. I have a friend who tried for years to get pregnant. Then, when she and her husband adopted a child, they suddenly got pregnant.
Me: I have a sister who has adopted three children and has never been pregnant. I also have two close friends who adopted three children between them in the last year, and neither of them have gotten pregnant since. And my husband and I never got pregnant after going through the foster parent training program. That was three years ago.
Nurse: I don’t know. I know too many people who’ve had that happen.
Me: I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m just saying that it also doesn’t happen.
Nurse: Well, it seems like a lot of people get pregnant that way.
Me: And a lot of people don’t. As many as one-third of the couples who seek medical help for their infertility never achieve a pregnancy.
Nurse: That’s not a very big number.
Me: It is to one-third of the couples trying to get pregnant.
Nurse: The glass is half full.
Me: And half empty. But what does it matter? Why bother measuring the glass at all when taking a drink? It is what it is, and it is given to us by God for our good. Bottoms up!
Thank you to Pastor Michael Diener for showing us the example Joseph gives to men today in being a faithful husband and father by trusting in God.
“WWJD – What Would Joseph Do?”
Joseph provides men with a wonderful example of seeing and trusting in God’s grace through the eyes of faith. In Matthew 2:13-15, Joseph gives men today an example to follow in the vocations of husband and father – an example of faithfulness and trust in God. “Now when they had departed, behold, and angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy Him’. And he rose and took the child and His mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son.’”
When the angel of the Lord informed Joseph of God’s plan to save the holy family from wicked King Herod, he did so without all the details. The angel only gave God’s promise to guide him. Joseph didn’t question God’s plan. He didn’t take time to ask why. He didn’t offer God a better alternative that would fit nicely into his own plans. He trusted God. Joseph was asked to be faithful. And by faith, Joseph was led to see God’s plan unfold. God gave Joseph the means to be faithful in taking care of his wife and child which certainly led to his being faithful in his vocations as father and husband throughout his life.
God gives fathers today means to be faithful as well – the means of grace. God’s Word and Sacraments provide the faith that furnishes guidance, comfort and strength; pointing them to the cross where sin is forgiven and to the empty tomb where there is rejoicing in the promise of eternal life. Where men fail – God’s grace restores. When the daily grind leads men to worry and become stressed out – God’s grace gives comfort and strength in the midst of struggles. In other words, God gives everything men need to be faithful husbands and fathers.
Men are called to be faithful just as Joseph was – faithful husbands to their wives and faithful fathers to their children. Even though men may not see blueprint of God’s plan laid out for them, they are given something better – God Himself in His Word, in the promises of Baptism and the nourishment of Christ’s body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of sins.
As men fulfill their God-given roll as spiritual heads of the household, they are wise to look at Joseph’s example. By remaining faithful to God, as Joseph was, men are remaining faithful to their wives and children. There is no greater gift a man can give to his wife and children than to point them to God’s gifts of Word and Sacrament. And more than just pointing their wives and children to God’s Word and Sacrament, men are to be an example of faithfulness by leading their families by the hand, as Joseph did, to God’s Word daily and in receiving the Lord’s Supper regularly. In doing so they are strengthening themselves, their families, and the church.
God’s Word does not give much information about Joseph, not even a word from Joseph himself, but it does give men an example to follow in their vocations as husbands and fathers. Sometimes a good example is worth more than a thousand words. To be a Godly husband and father a man ought to ask himself “What would Joseph do?”
Pastor Michael Diener
Thank you to Kelly Stout for reminding us of all that comes with being chosen as an adoptive parent.
“Joseph’s Worthiness (and My Own)”
I carry around a strange sort of guilt – one that only those blessed by adoption can probably understand. Why in the world did God and my son’s birthmother choose me? Oh, it is loaded with guilt. When I fail as a mother, I fail my child, I fail God, and I fail my child’s birthmother. I don’t talk about it often, because it makes people uncomfortable. My reality of feeling guilty for being chosen when others have been waiting weighs on me. I see my friends struggling to conceive, I see my friends waiting with great anticipation to be chosen as adoptive parents, and I see myself failing so often in my vocation.
We don’t know very much about Joseph’s emotions as being chosen as an adoptive father. We all know Mary asked, “Why me?” Given my own guilt about the vocation of caring for a son entrusted to me through adoption, I can only imagine that Joseph felt unworthy. “The Son of God? You want me to be responsible for raising the Son of WHO? Why have I been chosen when all those other men are so much better than me?” At least, that is how I feel at times. “Those other women would probably do a better job than me…” When, in fact, that guilt is very far from the truth.
In teaching our toddler son about his infant adoption, we tell him, “Your birthmother loves you so much that she asked God to help her choose a mommy and daddy for you. And you know who He chose for you? Us, your Mommy and Daddy!” When I say those words, I am not only teaching my son about God’s love for him, I am also reminding myself God did indeed choose us. We were given this child, not because we deserve him, not because we are better than anyone else, but because before he was conceived God knew him and knew all the days numbered for him even before there were any of them. He gave us the vocation of father and mother. He entrusted this little babe to us. He will provide us with the wisdom and strength needed to raise him in the way of the Lord.
When Joseph looked around, saw his own sin and failure, and wondered, “God, why was I given this Gift when others were not,” I hope he was reminded that those others, all others indeed, were given the same Gift. The Gift bore our guilt on a cross, died, and rose again, so that with Joseph, we need not question our worthiness in our vocations. Our worthiness is declared through Him.
Kelly Stout
