Author: Katie Schuermann

I believe the Holy Scriptures to be the inerrant Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and fulfilled in Christ Jesus, our risen Lord and Savior. Therefore, I have faith that children are exactly what God tells us they are in His Word: a heritage to receive from Him. Children are not a prize for me to earn, a commodity for me to demand, nor an idol for me to worship. They are a gift which my Heavenly Father only has the privilege to bestow and to withhold. If God makes me a mother, then I can receive His good gift of a child with all joy and confidence in His love for me. If God does not make me a mother, then I can still know with all joy and confidence that God loves me completely in His perfect gift of the Child Jesus whose sacrifice on the cross atoned for my sin and reconciled me to my Heavenly Father. I am God’s own child, purchased and won by the blood of Jesus, and God promises in His Word that He will work all things - even my barrenness - for my eternal good. For this reason, I can in faith confess that my barrenness is a blessing.

Did They Really Just Say That?

Surprised Woman

Just remember, whatever it is people say to you in response to your barrenness, they are just saying whatever really comforts themselves.

So, when all of that anger and pain and frustration boil to the surface at being told you should just relax or take more Vitamin D or make an appointment with Dr. Doogie Howser or start the adoption process or lift your cervix for thirty minutes after intercourse or pray harder in order to get pregnant, take a deep breath and think of it this way:

They are not telling you what to do and how to be and how to feel; they are telling you what comforts them. They are helping you know them better.

That’s not so bad, right?

What’s Wrong?

Male Doctor Talking with PatientI enjoyed your “Best Weapon against Temptation” post. It’s as if you read my mind, as usual. My husband and I ask ourselves those same questions among others each time we go to some doctor or specialist. We even left a wonderful doctor who was very knowledgeable about PCOS as her main goal was to “get me pregnant as quick as possible.” Granted, I think IVF was even against her particular beliefs, but pregnancy still wasn’t my only goal. My husband and I have always sought a general well-being of my whole body instead of narrowly focusing on just my reproductive health.

Even with keeping that in mind, I find myself tempted to wonder why the doctors haven’t been able to find out what’s wrong, yet. Why can’t they tell me why I’m tired all the time, etc.? Then I realize that even with good intentions it’s easy for me to focus on healing coming from the doctors themselves or to be driven by a desire to figure out all the answers. It leads to nothing but frustration when one looks to doctors alone for healing and answers. As Rev. Petersen alludes to in his sermon, faith built on such “things” instead of God’s Word won’t last. Certainly there’s no comfort in putting one’s trust in things that will pass away. I’m so thankful that we have God’s Word to turn to in such times. The devil sure does know our weaknesses, and I’m even more thankful to have a Savior who has overcome such temptations for me, as I fail pretty miserably on my own!

L. Meyer

Amen, sister. Amen.

The Best Weapon against Temptation

There are reasons for seeking medical attention for infertility that can lead to sin. Answer these questions:

  • Do you wish to “make a baby” at the risk of hurting, even killing, your neighbor?
  • Do you think that having a baby is the only thing in life that can make you happy?
  • Do you put your identity in motherhood rather than in your Baptism?
  • Will your faith in God’s goodness to you in Christ Jesus be upset if you do not conceive?

These reasons for seeking medical intervention for infertility are temptations from the devil. These reasons entice us to serve our own desires and wishes, even when it means trusting the words of our doctors over the words of our Creator. We should be wary of these emotional snares that would bind our faith to things temporal rather than to things eternal.

What is our best weapon against such temptations and snares?

Rev. David H. Petersen gives us the answer in his sermon for the First Sunday in Lent – Invocabit (Genesis 3:1-21; 2 Corinthians 6:1-10; St. Matthew 4:1-11) as it appears in Thy Kingdom Come from Emmanuel Press:

All the temptations [of Jesus in the wilderness] show us something of the character of sin and the character of the God who overcomes sin. But the Lord’s response also shows us the best weapon we have against temptation and the only weapon we need. He says, again and again, “It is written.”

The strategy of the devil against our first parents, and then against our Savior, was to plant doubt. He wants us to place ourselves into the role of judge. We will decide what is good for food, pleasing to the eye, and capable of making us wise. We will decide if He is worthy of being our God. This is what we do when we declare, “My God would’t do this or say that.” But, in fact, we don’t get to decide who God is or what He should do. He tells us who He is and what He does in His Word. Faith built on emotions and feelings or our own reason and goodness is like seed sown on rocky ground. It has no root. In time of temptation, it withers and dies.

The answer to doubt is God’s Word. It is written. It is not fleeting, corruptible, or changing. It is solid, lasting, eternal. All things pass away, but the Word of God does not pass away. It is written, in the first place, on the page, not in our hearts. Even the Lord Himself, in the desert, submits to the written Word. It is the written, objective, unchanging Word. (Petersen, 29-30)

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I sang with Renée Fleming.

I really did.

Well, okay, I and the rest of the audience.

And it may have been an encore, but still. I sang with Renée.

You know what, we can even scrap the singing part. I was in the SAME ROOM as Renée!! I sat about 150 feet away from her as she messa di voce-d the ducks out of the water on Strauss’s “Morgen!” and made even my husband tear up on “O mio babbino caro.”

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I sat here. She stood there.

I sat in the same room as Renée, and this once-in-a-lifetime experience was made possible by the enterprising (a.k.a. sold some electronic equipment in order to buy tickets) generosity of my husband.

It gets even better. My husband researched the local restaurants and took me out for my favorite meal before the recital: a burger and sweet potato fries. That, my classy friends, is how it’s done. True love in action.

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Why am I writing about a burger and the best soprano in the world on a blog about barrenness?

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Because, dear readers, even a barren woman can have a really good day.

Phantom

Physical pain is a phantom.

It is terrifying, all-consuming when it visits. It makes you shiver in a cold sweat. It makes you lose control of your bodily functions. It chases away your language and leaves only muffled banshee moans in its wake.

Then, when it suddenly, mysteriously disappears, when it releases its raging grip on your existence, you can’t help but look around and ask, “Was it real, or did I just imagine it?”

Either way, the memory continues to haunt you.

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Embryonic Adoption

Question Submitted: What do you think of embryonic adoption?

Rebecca and I have spent hours on the phone, on the road, and over our dinner plates talking about this, and here is what we think:

Before we engage in a conversation about embryonic adoption in the Church, we first need to come to an agreement in the Church that embryos should cease being produced and frozen through the procedure of IVF.

In an effort to get that conversation on IVF rolling, we are engaging various LCMS pastors across the Midwest in a series of roundtable discussions on the topic. We’ll check in with you later about embryonic adoption once we’ve listened to what our pastors have to say.

In the meantime, let’s continue to pray for our littlest neighbors frozen in time. Lord, have mercy.

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All Depends on Our Possessing

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When with sorrow I am stricken,
Hope anew my heart will quicken;
All my longing shall be stilled.
To His lovingkindness tender
Soul and body I surrender,
For on God alone I build.

Well He knows what best to grant me;
All the longing hopes that haunt me,
Joy and sorrow, have their day.
I shall doubt His wisdom never;
As God wills, so be it ever;
I commit to Him my way.

If my days on earth He lengthen,
God my weary soul will strengthen;
All my trust in Him I place.
Earthly wealth is not abiding,
Like a stream away is gliding;
Safe I anchor in His grace.

“All Depends on Our Possessing,” Lutheran Service Book, 732 s.4-6

First Officer

Question Submitted: I’ve noticed that several of your hosts have adopted children this year. Does it hurt that you are the only HRTB host not to have been given the gift of a child? 

Don’t gasp, readers. This is not an audacious question. It is an honest one, and, frankly, I get asked it quite often. So, here is my honest answer:

First, from this website’s conception, my goal was never to have only childless hosts. In fact, if you have ever referred to the host page of this site, you already know that Rebecca, Kristi, Melissa, and Sandra have been mothers for years, whether through the gift of conception or adoption. I invited these sage women to cohost this site with me, because I am terribly aware of my own shortcomings. I am not an authority on every topic we cover on this site, and I rely heavily on their experience, wisdom, prudence, and compassion in responding to such issues as miscarriage, secondary infertility, adoption, and other concerns that touch upon the subject of barrenness.

Now, in response to the hurting portion of your question:

It does not hurt that I am the only HRTB host not to have children; it hurts that I don’t have children, period.

Yet.

It is remarkably easy to rejoice with my fellow hosts in the gifts they have been given this year, because I, too, have been given special gifts from God. I have been given the gift of knowledge from God’s Word that children are His gift to give and that He is wise in His giving; I have been given the gift of faith which trusts in the goodness of God’s giving and His not giving; I have been given the gift of fellowship in the Body of Christ, and I get to participate in the joy of my mother-sisters; I have been given the gift of assurance that my own prayers and sorrows are made known to my Father in heaven, because I have a Mediator who always intercedes on my behalf at God’s right hand; I have been given the gift of a Comforter who, through Word and Sacrament, grants me peace that surpasses all understanding; and, last but not least, I have been given a special vocation in the lives of my fellow HRTB hosts: First Officer of the Starship Motherhood.

What, exactly, does the First Officer do?

The First Officer receives stunned, amazed, blessed, joyous, play-by-play texts when Baby Mayes arrives.

The First Officer gets to share meals with Baby DeGroot and Big Boy Ostapowich.

The First Officer gets the privilege of being one of the first people to receive updates and pictures of Baby Leckband in China so that she can post said updates and pictures to Mama Leckband’s website for her while international internet access is limited.

Most importantly, the First Officer receives tender empathy at all times, even from across an ocean in the middle of a sleepless night just after Baby Leckband has been put into the arms of her family for the first time:

“I know there is joy and pain for you personally on this day. Know this, dear sister, you are loved for who you are TODAY. Your worth is found in the shadow of the One who has borne all of our suffering. His gifts are yours each and every day, despite your earthly pains and sorrows. You. Are. Loved!” 

Does it hurt? Not as much as it could, thanks to the compassionate generosity of my fellow hosts who never leave me out but put me right in the middle of the celebration.

I am one blessed, barren woman.

Salute,

First Officer Schuermann

Compelling Distress

“But where there is to be a true prayer, there must be seriousness. People must feel their distress, and such distress presses them and compels them to call and cry out. Then prayer will be made willingly, as it ought to be. People will need no teaching about how to prepare for it and to reach the proper devotion. But the distress that ought to concern most (both for ourselves and everyone), you will find abundantly set forth in the Lord’s Prayer. Therefore, this prayer also serves as a reminder, so that we meditate on it and lay it to heart and do not fail to pray. For we all have enough things that we lack. The great problem is that we do not feel or recognize this. Therefore, God also requires that you weep and ask for such needs and wants, not because He does not know about them [Matthew 6:8], but so that you may kindle your heart to stronger and greater desires and make wide and open your cloak to receive much [Psalm 10:17].” Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, III: 26-27.*

* Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (ed. Paul Timothy McCain; St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 411.