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.

“He Will Not Always Chide”

“Bless the LORD, O my soul,
 and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good
 so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.”
Psalm 103:1-10 (ESV)

He who has made you barren is not repaying you according to your iniquities. No, the wages of your Sin has already been paid in full by the death of Christ on the cross.

The LORD is merciful and gracious to you even in your barrenness, for, in Jesus, He has kept His promise to work righteousness and justice for you, the oppressed. He has forgiven you of your Sin – Alleluia! – and works this rotten, wretched pain for your good (Romans 8:28).

That is why we, the childless, can join our voices with the psalmist:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, 
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!”

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Symposium Schedule

What do IVF, embryo adoption, and miscarriage all have in common?

They’re topics which will be addressed at the Infertility Ethics Symposium at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis on Saturday, November 8th. Please, do everything you can to make sure your pastor can attend.

Here is an itinerary of the day’s events as well as descriptions of the papers which will be presented.

You can find out more information about the symposium as well as how to reserve your pastor’s spot by visiting LCMS Life Ministry’s website.

It’s time for the Church to speak on these things.

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What’s Your Job?

“What is your job, anyway?” one of my best friends asked me this week. “You know, this thing you do. The driving around everywhere to listen to peoples’ problems.”

Huh. I knew what she was asking, but I didn’t know how to answer. Because I’m not exactly sure myself. “Facilitator, I guess.”

I thought for one more moment before nodding my head. Yes, that’s the best word I could think of for it. I’m not a trained social worker; I don’t have an official call as a deaconess in the church; I’m not employed by any organization to do this traveling-speaking-listening-thing. But still. People want, even need, the chance to get together to talk about all kinds of things – suffering, barrenness, secondary infertility, chronic pain, infertility ethics, miscarriages, estranged children, dead family members, you name it – and it’s my privilege to facilitate that getting together.

My friend nodded and did that thing she does so well. She waited for me to say more, for she wasn’t being sassy in her questioning. She was being helpful, encouraging me to process and talk about my strange vocation.

“Actually,” I confided, leaning against her kitchen counter for support, “this may sound silly, but I kind of think of myself as a mother of women whose own mothers live far away or are already asleep in Jesus. They need a woman to hold their hand, listen to them, hug them, comfort them, and remind them of God’s faithfulness to them in Christ Jesus. They need a mother. I get to be that for them, sometimes.”

I felt my face warm at this very personal admission. I’m barren, but I had just called myself a mother. I hastily explained, “I just don’t blog about it very much, because I feel weird admitting it to others.”

But it’s true.

So I just blogged about it.

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The Wisdom of Melissa

P1030754 copyI was such a chicken in the beginning.

I really didn’t want to write about IVF.

“I think you have to,” Melissa gently encouraged. “It wouldn’t be responsible to write a book on barrenness and not talk about the medical side of things. It’s a part of the whole issue. Every woman ends up there at some point or other.”

Melissa was right. She usually is. Her wisdom is 3 parts Scripture and 1 part grit, shaken in a tall tumbler made strong as iron from countless barbell cleans, burpees, and a life lived under the cross of Christ.

I ceased splashing my filmy, water-color impressions of infertility medicine on the page and, instead, drew careful, measured lines through the landscape of infertility ethics. It was scary at first – I felt so alone and inadequate as an artist – but Melissa helped me choose which colors to use and tutored me in the art of shading. After all, there were foggy, gray areas in the world’s portrait of infertility which would benefit from less darkness and more of Scripture’s light.

One thing is certain. I couldn’t have written that book without the help of someone as sage, smart, sympathetic, and strong as Melissa.

I’m so glad I didn’t have to.

The Wisdom of Kristi

P1060196More than a few times along this HRTB blogging journey, I have been broken in such a way that required someone else putting me back together. That someone was almost always Kristi.

“I don’t think God’s going to give us any children,” I remember sobbing into the phone to her one afternoon. I felt so worthless to the world as a childless, married woman, and the guilt and shame of barrenness and failed adoptions and empty arms threatened to overwhelm me.

“I love you just the way you are,” Kristi spoke evenly into my ear. “I wouldn’t change one thing about you. God has given you what you have today, and He works all things for your good. You are blessed even without children.”

When scathing correspondence began pouring in from IVF advocates around the world, Kristi kept me on task.

“People need to be educated in a gentle yet honest way,” she cheered, “one that points them back to Christ, Who keeps them.”

There were even times when Kristi seemed almost telepathic, as if she could sense what particular burdens and doubts I was struggling against that day.

“Your marriage has been blessed by God,” she pointed out, “despite not being blessed with children either biologically or adopted. Your marriage is a gift from the Lord, and that is something to be cherished.”

But there is one little bit of correspondence from Kristi that, still to this day, moves me more than anything else. It’s just so selfless and generous. For, from across an ocean and in the middle of a sleepless night just after her adopted baby girl had finally been put into her arms for the first time, Kristi emailed me – insignificant, childless me:

“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!” 

Even now, the fact that Kristi put her own joy on hold to sit with me in my grief, stings my eyes with liquid salt.

Kristi is that person who tells me the truth – the unpolluted Truth which comforts and restores – when I need to hear it the most, and I am better for it.

That’s why, whenever I sit down to write a post on this website, I try so hard to be like her.

Rejection of Unborn IVF Babies Is for Real

Please, read this article which appeared in yesterday’s Breitbart News.

What is it about?

Well, to pull a quote from the article given by Robert Oscar Lopez, professor of English at California State University at Northridge: “‘Our republic can’t function if human beings are the objects of property rights until they become adults.'”

Surrogacy does this to human beings.

Lord, have mercy on us all.