“Remember: When you’re going to speak about children’s lives, add 9 months.”
Thank you for the reminder, Pastor Schuermann.
(You can read his entire article here.)
Author: Katie Schuermann
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.
Bon Voyage
![IMG_1413[2] copy](https://heremembersthebarren.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/img_14132-copy.jpg)
Toothbrush? Check.
Comfy pants? Check.
Chocolate? Check.
I’m all packed for The Great Getaway, ladies. How about you?
Can’t wait to see you, God willing, Friday evening! Safe travels and Godspeed.
The Wisdom of Melissa
I 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
More 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.
Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, and Embryo Testing
Thank you to Rev. Todd Wilken for talking with me about infertility, IVF, and embryo testing this afternoon on Issues, Etc.
You can listen to the interview here.
Infertility Ethics Symposium
Thank you to Andy Bates and KFUO’s His Time show for interviewing Dr. Jeff Gibbs and me this morning on the upcoming Infertility Ethics Symposium at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.
You can listen to the interview here.
Reporter Online also recently published a helpful article which explains why the LCMS Life Ministry and the Concordia Seminary Life Team are co-sponsoring this important and timely event.
You can read the article here.
Cow Choir
I stood next to the electric fence, its current of energy clicking like a castanet around the perimeter of the rolling pasture. I had just finished my morning run, and my senses were feasting on the lush humidity of green grass, mud puddles, and cow pies. I couldn’t help but sing.
I am Jesus’ little lamb,
Ever glad at heart I am;
A nearby heifer lifted her head and swung my way.
For my Shepherd gently guides me,
Knows my need and well provides me,
Another spotted girl on the southern slope abandoned her to-go breakfast and ambled towards the music. Then, another. And another. The heifers were peeling off one by one, now, defying the herd mentality for music. Perhaps cows and musicians are kindred spirits?
Loves me ev’ry day the same,
Even calls me by my name.
At this point, six black-and-white heifers stood silently before me in a line, their shoulders hunched together like shy teenagers at a party. I was singing about the wrong animal, but they didn’t seem to mind. At least the Hero was correct. I started in on stanza two.
From somewhere behind me, a screen door opened and slammed shut, and soon two boyish pairs of bare feet were braving the gravel driveway to come stand at my side. Apparently, cows are not the only creatures willing to leave breakfast for a good hymn-sing.
“Let’s sing the Offertory,” I suggested to my short companions. They didn’t hesitate, their sweet voices floating over the sun-streaked countryside like birds on a breeze.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not a way from Thy presence,
And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
I looked over my shoulder to see the thirteen-year-old in braids who had quietly emerged from the farmhouse to join our choir.
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation,
And uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Amen.
The cows stared at us, quiet and motionless. They didn’t applaud, but they also didn’t leave.
“I think they like our music,” I said.
The older boy leaned over and whispered, “They must be Lutheran.”
The cows didn’t protest.
“But which one is the pastor?” he asked.
“I know,” the younger boy piped up. “The bull is the pastor.”
I contained my smile. “I bet you’re right. God calls men to be pastors, so it must be the bull.”
“But that one’s the organist,” the older boy confirmed, pointing to the first heifer to join our songfest. One strand of grass hung awkwardly from the corner of her mouth. The thirteen-year-old giggled with delight.
“Yes, I think she is.”
We sang a few more hits from Lutheran Service Book before waving goodbye to our cow kin. As I headed into the house to claim my own spot at my hostess’s table, I couldn’t help but thank God for dairy farms, Missouri breezes, the hospitality of dear friends in Christ, the faith of little Lutherans, and the gift that is the Church’s song.
Some days, in the fellowship of Christ, I almost feel like a mother.
Cross-Bearing
We are Simon of Cyrene.
We are called out of our comfortable existences – away from our well-laid plans and trips and vacations – to pick up the cross and turn towards Golgotha.
We are called to step alongside our bloody Savior.
We are called to messy good works which our Lord has prepared in advance for us to do.
We are called to witness the Suffering Servant pour out His blood for our atonement.
We are inconvenienced – yes, even annoyed – to have to bear the weight of something so filthy, but we are blessed beyond reason to be plucked from the crowd of goats. For we, in our cross-carrying, see the Savior’s power to bear more than just the weight of splintery wood. We see Him bear the crushing weight of Sin so that nothing – not our sin, not death, not the devil – can separate us from the love of God.
We who have been baptized into Jesus’ death will carry the cross and die with Him, but – Good News! – our Savior did not stay dead. He is risen, and we will rise again, too! Alleluia!
So put a shoulder under it, Simon.
