My husband prayed these words in our evening prayers the other night:
“Lord, help us to remember that this life is not about being perfectly happy, nor is it about being well. It is about waiting in hope for You to fulfill all things.”
Amen.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
I am waiting for Advent to begin, that blessed season of repentance when we in the Church reflect upon our need for a Savior.
I am waiting with Mary for the Child that has been promised to me, the Perfect One who exchanged my sin for His blessed righteousness.
I am waiting for the arrival of my dear friend’s adopted little girl, the little elephant whom we have been praying for and anticipating for seven, long years.
I am waiting for my godchildren to grow up in Christ, praying that God would preserve and sustain them in the one, true Faith unto life everlasting.
I am waiting for deliverance from my affliction, thanking God that I am medication and injection-free at the moment.
I am waiting for a child of my own, knowing full well that I may never have one.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus, for I am waiting.
Question Submitted: What do you think of NaProTECHNOLOGY?
My husband and I are actually trained in NaProTechnology. It was first presented to us ten years ago by our pro-life and Roman Catholic friends as an ethical alternative to the pill, and, in our self-acclaimed wisdom, we trained in it the summer before our wedding to ultimately avoid pregnancy in our marriage. For the next two years, I carefully charted and met with a nurse (year one) and a doctor (year two) for guidance and assessment. As you know, we were quite successful with the method.
We have since then used NPT to try to get pregnant, and it has not been so successful for us there. I was able, however, to point a few seminary friends suffering from PCOS to a local doctor trained in NPT, and some of them are mothers today.
My humble opinion: As an educational tool, I am not opposed to NPT. I learned a lot about my body that helps me cope with the ups and downs of barrenness today; however, you will notice that I do not publicly advocate for it. My main reason is that most people who ask me about NPT are not interested in using the method as healing medicine but as something very different.
My husband and I regret our decision to avoid pregnancy early in our marriage. Sometimes, I even regret knowing all the ins and outs of my cycle, hormones, etc. It is something I can never unlearn, and there are definitely days when I would rather forget all about it.
What William Shakespeare meant to write before his editor gave all of the lines to Romeo:
[Juliet is visible at her window, amazed that a cool breeze actually makes her feel cool.]
Juliet
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Estrogen is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious Lupron moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more cool than she.
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but hot and sweaty
And none but chemically-induced menopausal women do wear it. Cast it off.
[Juliet turns and walks to her bedroom thermostat, happily turning it up from 68 to 78.]
O, Estrogen doth teach the torches to burn a little less brightly!
It seems she brushes upon the cheek of night
As a cool breeze upon a parched Dallasite’s visage.
[Juliet turns out the light and goes to bed. All is well again in the house of Capulet.]
The end.
I am an advocate of healing medicine, both traditional and nontraditional.
I daily take prescription medication to keep my already overactive pancreas from kicking out more insulin into my bloodstream. I then supplement my medication with lots of exercise and a low-glucose diet.
My most recent venture into healing medicine involved a short round of hormone therapy to help my doctor properly diagnose several masses that were growing in my abdomen. I then underwent surgery to remove a batch of endometriomas and accompanying scar tissue from around my colon, bladder, and ovaries. Next, came a six-month regimen of Lupron shots to kill off the residual scar tissue my doctor had to leave behind, and, on top of that, I now eat a mostly pescetarian (vegan with fish) diet on top of my low-glucose fare to avoid environmental hormones, additives, preservatives, gluten, and nutrients which may cause inflammation in my body.
In other words, I prefer my medical cocktail as follows: one part traditional, two parts nontraditional, shaken with ice, and then straight down the hatch.
Why am I over-sharing all of this with you? I want to make it clear that I am a champion of healing medicine. I believe it is part of the daily bread God provides for us and that it is good and right to try to make the body whole. I believe that we are free in Christ to take medicine and to undergo diagnostic tests and to have surgeries and to train for triathlons and to sit for acupuncture treatments and to avoid dairy (Oh, wretched cross that I bear!) and to drink liquified kale for the healing purposes of our flesh.
However.
Like the Apostle Paul, I believe that my freedom in Christ, whether applied to medicine or to circumcision or to meat-eating or to whatever, is intended by God to serve my neighbor, not myself.
“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Galatians 5:13 (ESV)
We are totally free in Christ to seek healing medicine in our barrenness, but that freedom is still intended to serve our neighbor, even the little neighbor we hope to conceive in our womb. For this reason, I do not consider in vitro fertilization (IVF) to be healing medicine, nor do I consider it to rest safely within the realm of Christian freedom.
IVF does not simply seek to make the body whole, but it seeks to create children for our own purpose and use, whether that be cherishing, rejecting, discarding, freezing, or even killing. This is not using our Christian freedom to serve our neighbor. It is using our freedom to serve ourselves at the expense of our neighbor.
Let me draw a clear picture for you. When children are created in a petri dish during IVF, those children have no rights of their own. They, at the whim of the parent*, can be:
IVF does not serve these children (our neighbors!) through love, but, at best, disrespects the personhood of the children created, and, at worst, serves as the concentration camp of the fertility industry.
Please be certain, it is the procedures surrounding IVF, not the children that result, that I am calling into question. As I wrote in my book, “Whatever sin and controversies may surround IVF, the children that are conceived and born to us through such procedures are still a heritage from the Lord. These children do not cease to be blessings and gifts from God simply because of the method by which they were conceived. We are not to think of these children as anything less than human beings who are wanted and cherished by our Lord. God’s love is what makes any and every child valuable in this life, not the means of parentage. Whatever decisions and actions parents may regret, the children that result from such decisions and actions are to be celebrated as the precious treasures that they are.” (He Remembers the Barren, 44-5)
Dear sisters, you may have already made use of IVF thinking that it was healing medicine. You may feel confused, angry, even guilty, right now. Do not despair! Your help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 124:8) Christ, the Lamb of God, takes away the sin of the world. “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19-20a ESV) Confess your regrets to your pastor to receive the peace of absolution, and let it be done to you as you believe.
* A frozen child’s right to life can also be at the whim of a government or a divorce court judge.
Karl Marx had it wrong. The opiate of the masses is not religion. It is chocolate.
I can usually tell when a grief cycle is ramping up, because I seem unable to deny myself the simple, happy pleasure of chocolate products. And cheeseburgers. And Chinese food. And, come to think of it, bing cherries, too. There must be something to things that start with “ch” that sing “Self-medicate!” to my grieving subconscious.
It is so much easier to eat than to cry.
The next time you see me sitting at a table with only “ch” foods in front of me, gently pull the fork out of my hand and replace it with a box of Kleenexes. I and my waistline will thank you.
I have this friend. She is crazy talented and super smart. She teaches world music, composes trombone octets, circular breathes into her flute, and, when she’s not busy traipsing around the globe to play international recitals, she hangs out with lowly, Lupron-riddled me.
She asked me about a month ago, “Hey, aren’t you nearing the end of your shots? When’s your last one?”
I blubbered something about it being the last Friday morning in June.
She looked my needle-weary self in the eye and said, “I’m coming with you.”
And, she did. This morning, my busy friend braved the Dallas traffic to meet me at the hospital at 8:00 o’clock sharp. She walked me into the exam room, cheered me through an inconvenient hot flash, winced in sympathy at the giant needle, hugged me through an emotional wave of relief in the parking lot, and, when it was all over, sat on a balcony with me at my favorite restaurant to share a cup of coffee and a chocolate muffin.
Do you want to know the best part? On our way out the door, I got a quick peek at my friend’s day schedule. The whole morning had been blocked out with the words, “Celebration with Katie.”
I don’t know if I could have felt more loved or better understood than I did in that moment.
So, if you are wondering what to do to help a barren friend through a difficult time, take a cue from Lisa: add a little more celebration to her life.
Question Submitted: I have been with my husband for 10 years now. To be honest we never used any type of sexual protection. I’ve been pregnant one time, very shortly, maybe for two weeks, and then I had a miscarriage. In 2009, and every year after, I have received prophetic words all from individuals who do not know that I was diagnosed with endometriosis, ovarian cysts, and an anteverted uterus. By faith I believe and speak that I am blessed through Christ Jesus. Therefore, I say I no longer have those diagnoses. Now, all have said the same thing, “The Lord is going to bless you and your husband with a child.” I believe it, have fasted and prayed and sought on the Lord concerning this. And, to God be the glory, He has given us revelation on the details of His will. He revealed that we are having a little girl and has even gave us a name. I have even seen what she will look like. Therefore, what is the issue?
What do you do when you get discouraged?
Growing up I didn’t desire to be a wife or mother, and then suddenly in 2008 the desire came along with all of the negative doctor reports. I know the desire to be a wife and mother is pleasing to my Lord and is from God, because, like never before, I have this wonderful & overwhelming desire to be a mother and to raise our children in holiness. Yet, discouragement creeps in, and this past week it came on hard. Insert a scene in which my husband is standing with a look of sheer helplessness as I stood in front of him crying, heaving, snot-nosed, shaking, emotional, with incomprehensible words spilling from my mouth. The only audible thing he heard was, “No one knows that even while I am up there leading praise and worship, I just want to cry, fall to my knees and cry, yet I don’t because I know my position requires me to minister to another at that moment…but it…(crying)…hurts…(crying)…sooo…oooh..oh.ooh(crying) bad…”
It was (to say the least) a moment that I know many who are waiting on the Lord to bless them have experienced from time to time. Yet sadly, I felt bad and called myself pathetic for not having faith and for allowing emotions to get the best of me. God had given me my visions of His will, therefore I should not be discouraged, right?
“oh thou of little faith..”
I said all this to ask: What do you do when you have done all that you know to do and are at a point where you feel so helpless that you are in a state of despair and close to giving up on the hope of having a child? I know that God is able and will bless, but how do you overcome the moments of impatience?
My dear sister in Christ, you are not of little faith. You are simply tired and worn out from bearing the weight of your cross of barrenness. It is exhausting to want something you haven’t been given, and it is even more taxing to put your trust in prophecies that have not yet come true. You are weary, my sister, not faithless.
Perhaps, some of your weariness comes from the task of discerning whether or not those prophecies and visions came from man or from God or from both? Perhaps your doubt is not in God but in whether or not the promise of motherhood is really from Him? I am not in a position to confirm whether or not those prophecies and visions concerning your own family life came from God, but I can tell you with assurance that God is not the only one who makes such prophecies and gives such visions. The devil, false prophets, and our sinful flesh are also eager to chime in with their own voices when it comes to the things we hear with our ears, see with our eyes, and feel in our hearts.
So, in what can we put our trust? We can put our trust and faith in the Word of God in Holy Scripture. That is the one, safe place where we can be certain that it is God’s voice we are hearing, not the devil’s. It is in His Word that God has most definitely revealed His will to you and your husband regarding what He has planned for your life, and you can put your faith in that even unto eternal life.
Here is the hard truth that comes from God’s Word: Outside of giving you the Child Jesus to save you from your sin, God has never promised in His Word to give you a child of your own.
Yet, God promises you so much more in His Word, and – Joy of all joys! – He keeps His promises. God promises to love you (John 3:16, Romans 5:8); God promises to save you from your sin (Matthew 1:20-21, Mark 16:16, Romans 6); God promises in baptism to adopt you into His family and make you an heir of heaven (Galatians 3:26-4:7); God promises to never leave you but to faithfully come to you in church through the reading of His Word and in the Holy Supper (Hebrews 13:5, Matthew 18:20, Exodus 20:24b, John 1:1, Matthew 26:26-29); God promises to provide all that you need to support this body and life (Matthew 6:30-32 and 10: 29-31, Colossians 1:17); and God promises to work all things, even your barrenness, for your eternal good (Romans 8:28).
You have asked me the question, what do I do when I have done all that I know to do and am at a point where I feel so helpless that I am in a state of despair and close to giving up on the hope of a child? I CRY, all snot-nosed and heaving like you described above, trusting in God’s promise to wipe away every tear on the last day; I CEASE putting my hope in things which God has not promised to me in His Word; I CLING in faith to the promises God has given me in His Word, namely, His promises to love me, save me, and never leave nor forsake me; I WAIT on Him in prayer, trusting that whatever He brings my way is for my eternal good; I SEEK first His kingdom and His righteousness, believing that God’s grace is sufficient for even childless, barren, little me; and, I REST in the knowledge that God loves me and cares for me in Jesus, even when I fail to do the things I just listed.
You are loved by God in Jesus, dear sister, just as you are, with or without a child. We don’t always get the things we want in this life, but we do get the things we need. God promises that for us in His Word, and you can trust that promise to come true.
There are a few side effects of Lupron which the manufacturer forgot to mention on the label:
1. The tropical-breeze-hot-flashes that tickled you in the spring of Texas will turn into blazing infernos in the Dallas heat of May.
2. No amount of fast-talking, gymnastics, or pointing across the room will hide the sweat marks on your clothes.
3. If you wear red, your face and arms will disappear against your clothes.
4. Sunshine, curling irons, lunch, sermons, cooking, reading, snuggling, writing, breathing, and time passing will cause a hot flash.
5. Never set your thermostat above 70. Ever. Or your loads of laundry will double.
6. Wear gloves and socks or your yoga mat will become a slip-and-slide.
7. Pants, capris, and anything with sleeves can be used as kindling at your next camp fire (though let someone else start the fire and sit 100 feet away; no, actually don’t go on that camping trip).
8. Don’t bother showering before bed, because you are going to wake up in the middle of the night soaked with sweat.
9. Lean into every air conditioner, fan, and refrigerator you meet.
10. Do not grow your hair out or cut bangs during this time.
This post was brought to you by Frigidaire, Fanimation, and Blue Haven Pools & Spas.
hot flash noun. a sudden feeling of feverish heat, typically as a symptom of menopause.
Not every girl in her mid-thirties is as blessed as me. I get to take small, frequent vacations to my own, private, tropical resort every day. I can be sitting in a restaurant, standing at my bathroom sink, or even kneeling in church when – swoosh! – within moments I am transported to a hot, humid haven.
Two Sundays ago, I was sitting in a pew when a particularly sweltering climate change hit, and I looked around to see if anyone else in the nave had noticed the equatorial shift. Everyone sat perfectly still, snuggled comfortably in their cardigans and suit coats, while I sat there furiously fanning my sleeveless arms.
“I remember those days,” a woman in her fifties leaned over to whisper conspiratorially.
She was not the only one to have noticed my steamy situation. A cluster of women standing in the narthex after the service grinned at me and confided, “The night sweats are the worst!”
Even though most of these women are twenty-plus years my senior, they welcomed me – Lupron-induced-menopausal, little me – into their circle. I felt oddly special to be included in their conversation, like a youth at the kids’ table suddenly being invited to dine with the adults.
The most touching show of camaraderie, however, came later that night at our monthly Bible study.
“Here,” Gretchen smiled, handing me a canvas-covered fan painted with delicate folk art. “I used this during the worst of it.”
I fingered the wooden handle and raised the fan to test its canvas sail. My lips parted in sweet relief as the most delicious, refreshing breeze moved across my feverish cheeks.
“Isn’t it the best?” Gretchen exclaimed. “You can keep it.”
Yep. I am one, blessed girl. Bring on the hot flashes!
