“How long have you been married?”

In years past, it didn’t matter what number I answered. The interrogator always one-upped me.

“Three years? Oh, don’t worry! You’ve got plenty of time. My husband and I didn’t even start trying until year five.”

“Five years? No problem! My mother didn’t have me until she and my dad had been married for seven years.”

“Seven years? No sweat! Mrs. Smith finally got pregnant on her eighth anniversary, so you better hurry up and finish that book before you get pregnant.”

“Eight years? You haven’t even been married a decade. God is just making you wait, so you will appreciate children more.”

“Ten years? A couple in my church started the adoption process at ten years, and then they got pregnant.” 

But there is something different about the number eleven. This year, my interrogators are tripping over my answer. Their open mouths, ready to counteract the five or seven or nine they are anticipating, clam up in response.

Apparently, the eleven card is trump.

(Cue flood of emails from people whose family and friends got pregnant in year eleven.)

In all seriousness, I know that the comments listed above were meant to bring me comfort, but they actually made me feel sad, even angry. Not only had I failed up to that point to produce a child in my marriage, but now I had to bear other people’s hopes and expectations on top of my own. What if I didn’t get pregnant like Mrs. Smith? Double failure. Double disappointment. Double pain.

It is tricky business reassuring a barren woman of the inevitability of pregnancy during year X of marriage, because she knows better. She is no fool. God has not promised her in His Word that she will be given the gift of a child, and every year of her life thus far attests to that reality. She knows Who it is that gives the gift of children, and she can call to mind ten barren women who have not gotten pregnant in year X for every suggested one who has. Add to that fact the burning desire she has for a child of her own, and the calling to mind of others who have already been given that gift from God can lead her to covetousness.

What is a good, helpful response to the number she gives to the marriage question? How about the truth?

“God has richly blessed you with X years of marriage! I pray He will continue to bless you and your husband in the years ahead.”

See? No false promises + some celebration = a lovely, little bit of correspondence.

I don’t know why God in His wisdom has not yet given us the gift of children. I don’t know why the pregnancy tests keep coming back negative. I don’t know why the adoption referrals are falling through.

But, here’s what I do know. Our desire to be mothers is good and right and God-given, so we don’t need to be afraid to be mothers today even without children of our own.

Be a mother of mothers and pray for your friends and family with children. Invite them all over for dinner, make that decadent trifle for dessert, and set a bucket of water balloons out in your front yard for a little impromptu playtime. Give those hard-working moms a break and watch their children while you send them off to the spa for an afternoon. Stick some grocery cards in their purses, accompany them on school field trips, and listen to what they have to say about life and mothering and everything in between.

Be a mother to the fatherless. Donate your time and talents to your local crisis pregnancy center, advocate for the rights of frozen embryos, speak honestly and openly about the effects of abortion on children, women, men, and our communities, raise money for adoption grants and orphanages, and hold the hands of teen mothers during ultrasounds.

Be a mother to the children in your church. Teach Sunday school, lead the children’s choir, make punch for VBS, sew quiet books and baptismal banners for the youngest saints, serve as godparents, chaperone a youth trip, and sit with frazzled parents who would like help wrangling their children during the sermon.

Be a mother to the elderly. Pick up sticks in their yards after a storm, give them rides to Walgreens, check out books for them from the library, weed their flower beds, sit with them and listen to their stories about the past, play the piano for them at your local nursing facility, and help alert your pastor as to when they require pastoral care.

Be a mother to a soldier. Write letters to him, send him Twizzlers, crochet him scarves, and pray for him every day. Make sure his family has plenty of money to pay their bills. Take his children to Chuck E. Cheese’s. Offer childcare once a week so his wife can run necessary errands. Attend his children’s sporting events and school concerts.

Be a mother to your pastor. Pray for him, speak well of him, defend him, and encourage him at every opportunity. Bring him produce from your garden, fill his freezer with beef from your pasture, and bake him an apple pie. Volunteer in whatever way you can at church and make sure his shoes never have holes in them. Serve on the altar guild and set the table for the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. Water the flowers on the altar and care for the vestments and paraments in the sacristy. Go to church and receive from him the gifts of Christ.

Be a mother to the dying and sit at their bedsides. Read to them the Psalms, confess to them the Apostles Creed, and sing into their ears those precious words of light and life which can be found in your hymnal.

I know you want to be a mother. Go ahead. Be a mother wherever you are, just as you are, to the children and people God has put in your life today.

Question Submitted: This past fall my son’s kindergarten teacher and fellow military wife (my husband is an LC-MS Navy chaplain) shared with me their many years-long wait for a child which includes fertility treatment and heartbreaking disappointments of domestic adoption. The down right awfulness of the Fall is evident in the fact that this wonderful woman has no child of her own. I cannot tell you how much this grieves me. I sob on a regular basis, and I do not think it would have hit me as hard had I not been familiar with your blog. I am a mom of three including one who is a baby. In fact, I nursed my newborn as she told me her story. 

She is such a fantastic teacher, and I can see by the way she teaches and interacts with children that she will be a wonderful mother, given the chance. She shares in my joy of my children, eagerly hearing my stories of all the funny things they say.

So here we are on the eve of Mother’s Day. For a few weeks, as I saw MD coming, I wondered if I should give her a card telling her that I remember her on MD. I knew my son would be coming home with a hand-made MD present that she would have planned weeks in advance and lovingly helped him make. I thought about asking you what you thought. I’ve read your posts about people saying what makes THEM feel better rather than what makes the barren woman feel better, and I do not want to make my grief hers. I want to tell her that I know MD is hard while you are still waiting and that scarcely a day goes by that I do not pray for her and her husband that they might be given the gift of parenthood. There was a beautiful and ridiculously expensive card at Target, blank inside where I could say what I want. BUT, I chickened out at the last minute. I was afraid that instead of offering comfort, I would be pouring salt in her wounds. 

My son forgot something in her classroom on Friday, so he and I and the baby went back in to get it. We chatted for a few minutes as we always do, and then as we were leaving I said, “Have a good weekend,” and she said with a smile, “Have a good Sunday.” It’s been killing me all weekend. I knew what she meant. She meant “Have a good Mother’s Day,” but she said Sunday instead. 

So, should I write her that card? Should I say something in person or just keep praying?

Yes to all three!

Your even asking this question highlights the awkward, social conundrum of Mother’s Day. No matter how much we want to turn the Woodrow Wilson-endorsed holiday into a politically correct celebration of all women, Mother’s Day really is intended just for the celebration of mothers. No matter how beautiful and sincere our intentions, sending cards, flowers, and greetings to barren women on the second Sunday of May is a clunky piece of work. It points out the obvious, and the obvious is painful.

Still, ignore the junkyard of discomfiture and celebrate your son’s teacher! Will your gifts of encouragement cause her more grief? Possibly. Will she grow stiff under your hugs and stone-faced before your compliments? Maybe. Will opening a flowery card cause her to cry? Most likely. But, no matter her immediate reactions, be assured that your caring, merciful action is a blessed calvary sent in to rescue her from a war zone of sorrow and shame.

You are wise to want to avoid adding to your friend’s grief, so I recommend focusing on celebrating the ways you appreciate her instead of dwelling on that which she doesn’t have. Tell her how much she means to you and your son. Don’t be afraid to point out the gifts God has given to her and how she uses them in service to you and your family. It doesn’t even have to be Mother’s Day for you to celebrate her.

Personally, my own grief is opened afresh every time I read a Mother’s Day card which celebrates me in my childlessness, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I still would rather have those mementos of encouragement than not be acknowledged at all in my barrenness.

In fact, those mementos help me grieve more healthily. The handprints from my godchildren remind me that I am not childless in my life; the poems from my nieces remind me that I am loved; the card from my mama reminds me that I am blessed to have a mother; the fierce hug and empathetic tears from a sister in Christ in the narthex remind me that I am not alone; the handmade chocolates from a father-figure in my church remind me that I am special; the picnic in the park with my husband reminds me that I am loved and needed just as I am; and the card that spills cut-out hearts onto my countertop reminds me that I am appreciated and remembered in prayer by a loving friend.

Yes, please write her a card, say something to her in person, and pray for her!

(And, on her behalf, I thank you.) xo