The apostle Paul writes these words in 1 Corinthians 12:26 — “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”
There is so much suffering in this world. We, the members of the body of Christ have suffered much. We have not suffered all, for Christ took that upon Himself for us. We should have suffered death, eternal death. God, in His mercy, sacrificed His own beloved Son, so that we might not suffer eternal death. God is gracious!
And now, dear friends, we can help carry the burden of suffering with our sisters in the faith. It’s sad to hear that a friend’s pregnancy has failed. Your sister in Christ tries to be strong, but it hurts so much. The birth mother chose to care for her child rather than place the little one in your dear friend’s arms. Your friend’s arms are heavy with sorrow but empty of children. Your friend’s children despise her as a parent. She questions where she went wrong.
What, as the Body of Christ, can we do? What can happen within the sisterhood of suffering? I have some ideas.
The sisterhood of suffering is one where you can…
NOT offer her false promises.
NOT tell her to simply “get over it.”
NOT dismiss her pain.
NOT ignore her tears.
NOT judge her sorrow.
NOT look the other way.
NOT leave her to drown in her despair.
The sisterhood of suffering is one where you can…
spend time with her.
hug her.
sit quietly beside her.
cry with her.
acknowledge her pain.
speak truthfully to her.
pray for her.
share God’s Word with her.
We are called to care for one another, and I’ve listed only a handful of ways we can do this. When one sister suffers, many suffer. We can only help bear the burden when we KNOW one another. Thus, we spend time together. We ask questions. We listen to one another. By the grace of God, He will help us share the suffering of a hurting sister. Can we take the hurt away? No, but perhaps we can be the hand of God to hug her. Perhaps we can be the voice who reminds her that God loves her and does not forsake her. Perhaps we can hand that pens a note of encouragement to her.
St. Paul exhorts us with these words from Romans 12:15 — “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.”
Dear sisters, let us love one another in the sisterhood of suffering.
My one and only son, Knox, had lost fifteen pounds in a span of two weeks. He was frail. He was going to the bathroom constantly. Then, he started telling me his eyesight was blurry and that he thought he needed new glasses—even though we had just been to the optometrist a few months earlier. He was sleepy and sluggish. His eyes looked glossy.
Something was clearly wrong. But I had no idea what.
Was he anemic? Was he going through a growth spurt? Was there some vitamin deficiency? Like any concerned mother with access to Google, I was running through every possibility I could think of.
Finally, and thanks be to God, my husband and I had enough sense to take him to urgent care.
The doctor took one look at the situation and immediately sent us to the emergency room. Then, he was taken by ambulance to the Pediatric ICU.
Knox was in full-blown diabetic ketoacidosis.
He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
The New Normal
I knew almost nothing about Type 1 diabetes. I had heard of it, of course, but I didn’t understand what it actually meant to live with it. No one in my immediate family had it. There was one relative on Adam’s side of the family who had it (and died from its complications more than 40 years ago), but Type 1 had never been something on our radar.
Suddenly, it was something we would think about every. single. day.
To say the diagnosis was traumatic is an understatement.
Knox spent a week in the hospital. I slept and held vigil on the little uncomfortable couch beside his bed while he was poked and prodded, hooked up to IVs, subjected to constant glucose checks, and given insulin as the doctors worked to stabilize his body.
And then we were sent home to begin what everyone calls a “new normal.”
Except it wasn’t.
Those of you who live with Type 1—or have a child who does—know the deal. From the moment of diagnosis, everything changes.
Food changes.
Sleep changes.
Sports. School. Travel changes.
Even the simple act of sending your child to bed changes.
For months, Adam and I woke up at 3:00am to check Knox’s blood sugar. Even now, more than three years later, a glucose monitor alarm in the middle of the night can still send one of us scrambling out of bed. A dangerous low isn’t something you can just ignore.
Current technology has given people with Type 1 diabetes exceptional tools to manage the disease and live incredibly full lives. I am profoundly grateful for them.
But the disease is still there.
And for a mother, that reality has been difficult to accept.
Unexpected Grief
After Knox’s diagnosis, all three of us grieved.
Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Eventually, some measure of acceptance.
Watching my son go through those emotions, too, broke my heart. I couldn’t take the injections for him. I couldn’t make his pancreas begin producing insulin again. I couldn’t guarantee that he would never experience a dangerous low.
I couldn’t fix it.
That helplessness nudged another wound I had carried for years.
Knox is my one and only child—not because we planned it that way. I spent years carrying the sadness and inadequacy that can accompany secondary infertility.
My body didn’t give me another child. And now I couldn’t fix the body of the only child I had.
We parents spend so much time trying to protect our children that we can almost convince ourselves that it is actually within our absolute power to do so. Then something happens that reminds us how little control we really have.
I could count carbohydrates, calculate insulin, advocate at school, educate coaches, pack emergency supplies, stay awake at night, pray, worry, research, prepare and watch.
But I could not heal my son.
Why Him?
Knox and I have talked about this. Why did God allow this? Why Type 1? Why him?
I don’t know.
And while it hits my pride at times, I have become more comfortable saying those three words.
I don’t know.
I don’t want to give my son some tidy, rose-colored answer God hasn’t given us. I don’t want to tell him that God gave him diabetes because He knew Knox was strong enough to handle it.
Because there have been days when Knox wasn’t strong enough. Neither was I.
And perhaps that is precisely where the faith we confess becomes all the more comforting.
God never promised we would be strong enough for everything that happens to us.
He has promised us Christ, who is the strongest.
In this fallen creation, bodies fail. Pancreases stop working. Women experience infertility. Children get sick. Parents discover there are things they simply cannot fix.
The one true faith doesn’t say that suffering itself is good.
Death is still an enemy. Disease is still part of a creation groaning under the consequences of sin.
And though suffering carries meaning of epic, spiritual proportions, it does not get the final word.
Jesus, who took it on the cross, died, and rose for us, does.
Not Mine to Save
This is the lesson I keep learning as a mother.
Knox was never ultimately mine to save.
God revealed that truth to me when I was young, even if I wasn’t fully prepared to accept it in every stage or context of my life.
On January 15, 2011, when Knox was just days old, God gave me something to cling to that would become infinitely more precious twelve years later.
Knox was baptized.
Water and God’s Word were poured over my tiny son, and the Lord placed His name upon him: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Long before I knew the words continuous glucose monitor, insulin-to-carb ratio, ketones, or diabetic ketoacidosis, God knew Knox.
Before I ever heard an alarm warning me that my son’s blood sugar was falling, God had already made a promise to him.
Before I discovered how helpless I was to keep my child safe, Christ had already done what I could never do.
He had died for him.
He had risen for him.
And in Baptism, He had claimed him.
My job was never to be Knox’s savior.
He already has One.
Now
Today, Knox manages much of his Type 1 himself. His teachers understand. His coaches understand. His teammates know. Whether he’s sitting in class or playing hockey, there are people around him who know what is happening and how to help.
God has provided people. He has provided medicine and technology.
He has provided other parents of children with Type 1 who understand the strange world we entered that June day.
And He has slowly given our family something resembling normalcy again.
Not the old normal. A different one.
I still wish I could take Type 1 diabetes away. I still wish I could have given him brothers and sisters.
But God is teaching me that motherhood was never about my ability to control the outcome. It was always about stewardship.
This child was entrusted to Adam and me for a time. We love him, feed him, teach him, protect him, advocate for him, laugh with him, worry about him, watch him play hockey, wake up when the glucose monitor screams, and do every ordinary thing parents do.
But ultimately, we entrust him to the One who loves him more than we ever could.
June 9, 2023, taught me how little control I have over my son’s life.
January 15, 2011, reminds me who does.
My one and only son belongs to Christ.
And when I cannot fix what is broken, when I cannot control what happens next, and when I cannot protect him from every suffering this fallen world may bring, our Lord returns me to that promise.
Knox is baptized.
Christ has claimed him.
I often parody-sing Stevie Wonder’s line, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered… He’s YOURS!” as a humorous, yet true reminder.
Our family of two grew to three with the birth of Joanna. She is our only biological child. God added two more children to our family through His gift of adoption. Maria came to us at 18 months old, and Josiah came to us as a newborn two quick months later. It’s not traditional, but it’s not a rarity either.
When we started the adoption process, we told Joanna what we were doing. At the time, she was four years old, so we really didn’t say too much to her. The plan was that she would stay with grandparents while Jerome and I flew to bring Maria home. God had other plans. Joanna was almost ten years old when Maria joined our family. Joanna flew to China with us and was an eyewitness to God’s miracle of adoption. When Josiah joined us from the hospital two months later, Joanna was one of the first to hold him. She had a front row seat to all that was happening. At her age, she could truly comprehend what God was doing in our family.
Jerome and I have always talked openly about adoption. We talked about children as giftsfor that is what they are. When Maria and Josiah were quite young, we made a picture book for each of them about their birth, their baptism, their adoption, and family. They looked at the pictures and heard their stories read to them repeatedly. We gave them the language to use when talking about these things. My children saw adoption as a wonderful thing. I know this to be a fact because I can still clearly recall this story…
I was driving Maria and Josiah to the library. They were seated in the second row, chatting about life as four and five year olds do. All of a sudden, one of them said, “Mom, we feel sorry for Joanna.” Surprised, I asked, “Why is that?” A sweet little voice replied, “Because she’s not adopted.” Oh, my heart. They saw adoption as a blessing!
Even today, Maria and Josiah can have fun with adoption. Recently, some of our scholars tested their blood types. It caused a bit of excitement in school. Siblings were tested so as to determine their parents’ blood type. Maria and Josiah laughed to think that their blood types would have nothing to do with big sister Joanna or their parents. They could smile and laugh, confident that they were loved for who they were, not for how they joined our family.
Jerome and I could not have prayed for a better understanding for those two. Adoption is not something to be hidden away in our family. We are adopted into God’s family. He makes us His own and gives to us all good things. We are now blessed to share those good things with others. Our three children are recipients of God’s good gifts. Jerome and I are the vessels through which those blessings flow.
Yes, there is a significant age gap between Joanna and the “littles.” She was an only child for a long time. She did have friends closer to her age, and we made sure she had time with those people. Life changed when she gained a sister and a brother in a short span of time. She relished her role as big sister and took such good care of them. I could see her learning to be a mother at that young age. Joanna, still to this day, is a wonderful big sister. While she lives hours away, she still connects with them and inquires about them. She invites them to be part of her life.
Maria and Josiah have their own trials to bear. Their life history has some gaps, and we’ll never be able to fill in all of them. It makes me sad that they won’t have a complete picture. However, it doesn’t lessen the blessings that they are to our family. I do think it is helpful they have each other to share that burden. It may seem “normal” to them that there are gaps because they both have those holes in their lives. They are best friends, and I thank God for that.
Whether your family grows biologically or through adoption or not at all, you are still blessed. God has given you life. He encourages you to live in His grace. He gives you life and salvation. He gives you His Holy Word and Sacraments, that you might be forgiven of all your sins and be refreshed in His promises of love to you. In the Church, we are one huge, blended family. We love one another and rejoice in being adopted in the family of God.
When I turned 41, my body entered the Twilight Zone.
Up until then, things had been clicking along pretty well. I was eating low-carb, going to the gym, feeling pretty good, and generally thought I had figured out what worked.
And then, seemingly overnight, my body said . . .Nope.
My thyroid tanked. My metabolism, pshh, what metabolism? seemed to pack its bags and leave. Things that had worked for years suddenly stopped. I gained 50 pounds despite continuing to exercise and trying to adjust my diet. I felt anxious, depressed, angry. . . and let’s not even get into libido. As far as east is from the west did I even want to think about that. I remember feeling so disconnected from my body, yet thinking, What in the world is happening to me?
Welcome to perimenopause.
Thankfully, I eventually found a doctor who helped me sort through some of what was going on. With medical care, supplements, hormone replacement therapy, and a few other things, I slowly began feeling more like myself again. The weight eventually came off—slowly, but surely—and over the last few years, I’ve managed to maintain some semblance of normalcy.
And I use the word normalcy loosely.
Because, apparently, perimenopause also means if you “do the supplemental things,” you may discover hair growing in places where hair has absolutely no business growing. Sorry. Just the truth! Then PMS sometimes decides to become PMDD—and other months, nothing at all. Thankfully, I haven’t struggled with hot flashes yet. Sleep, however, occasionally goes off the rails, though certain supplements have helped tremendously with that.
And by the way, if you are low in testosterone and do take a supplemental version of it, both you and your husband will thank you. Wink. You’re welcome.
Story time: One of the more surprising episodes happened last year shortly after I began a new vocation as a deaconess. I was settling into this new job and a completely new season of life post-homeschooling when suddenly my period was two weeks late.
I thought:
Oh. My. Gosh.
What if I’m pregnant?
After years of secondary infertility, there I was in my mid-forties, beginning a new chapter of life and wondering whether God had decided to throw the ultimate plot twist into the story.
Breaking news: I was not pregnant.
Just perimenopausal.
And honestly, that story pretty well sums up this season of life. It is a wild ride of hormonal shifts, strange symptoms, unpredictable cycles, and occasionally wondering, What in the new, fresh H-E-Double hockey sticks is going to happen next?
Thankfully, my husband has been wonderfully supportive and loving through all of it. (Again. Thank you, testosterone.) We understand a little better now what may be happening when I suddenly don’t quite feel like myself.
Sometimes.
Because beneath all the unpredictabilities that is this body of mine, something much deeper is happening.
My body is moving toward menopause. And menopause means that the possibility of conceiving another child will finally and permanently be off the table.
For a woman who has lived through secondary infertility, that realization could have been devastating at another point in my life.
But strangely, now, I think I’m okay.
Somewhere along the way, I learned to let go.
Not because the longing and hurt didn’t matter, but because life has continued unfolding around it. God continued providing. He gave me people to love, work to do, neighbors to serve, a husband and son to cherish, and fulfillment in vocations I never could have imagined. And healthcare to help me feel a little bit better!
There has been purpose, meaning, and even flourishing in places I wasn’t looking. Thanks be to God.
But perimenopause is another reminder that my body is changing. I’m getting older.
That can stir up other fears and questions. What will aging look like? What will happen to my health? What will life look like twenty or thirty years from now? Who will be there? What losses will come?
Some of those questions require practical and faithful wisdom since, ultimately, planning and healthcare can’t answer the deepest problem.
Our bodies are headed toward dying.
Perhaps dramatic for a blog post that began with chin hairs. But there it is.
Our bodies bear the effects of a fallen world.
And yet these bodies are also fearfully and wonderfully made. So much so, they are redeemed.
Christ did not come merely to rescue some spiritual part of us from our troublesome meat suits. He took on a body Himself. He suffered in that body. He died in that body. And He rose bodily from the grave.
Which means my hope isn’t that I can keep this body looking 35 forever.
Thank God, since that ship’s sailed.
My hope is the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
So for now, I can laugh (if my estrogen or testosterone haven’t dipped) at some of the unpredictabilities of perimenopause. I can seek good medical care. I can exercise, eat reasonably well, take the things that help me sleep, and occasionally pluck the mysterious hairs that seem determined to spring forth.
But I can also receive this strange season for what it is: another reminder that I am a creature whose life and body belong to God.
Fearfully and wonderfully made.
Currently somewhat hormonal.
And waiting, with all creation, for the day when Christ returns, raises, and restores our bodies.
I can hardly believe fifteen years have passed since the beginning of He Remembers the Barren. When Katie contacted Kristi, Rebecca and me a couple months ago to commemorate this blog, it gave me pause to reflect on so many things. Looking back to where this all started, I remember how new, exciting, and nerve-wracking it all felt—the blogging world itself, wondering how people would receive what we were writing, and hoping that ultimately in the midst of it all there would be real talk, real comfort and faithful theological grounding for people who were suffering.
I can also look back at myself and cringe a little. Okay, maybe a lot.
I’m sure most writers (a title I hold very loosely) feel that way when they look at their early work. I was in my early thirties then. I was definitely more immature than I realized. I had professional, diaconal and mental health training and, if I’m being fair to my younger self, some good theology. But I was also a little zealous. Overconfident, even. Ego and pride were mixed in there, too.
Seemingly an Old Eve disease that I am still getting medicine for each Lord’s Day.
The chronology is a little muddled in my head (thank you, perimenopause!) – though I recall talking to Katie about this topic well before the blog took shape and before my son was born. After a miscarriage early in my marriage, I recall having the fear that I was going to be barren, too. Like it was somehow contagious? There was this superstitious, self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts in my head that if I kept talking about barrenness, it was going to be my “fate.”
So much for good theology.
Then, right around the time this blog started, my husband and I had been blessed with a son. Parts of me thought this conversation wasn’t really for me at that point, even though I knew it was still good to spiritually comfort those who were suffering with it.
However, not too long after that, my husband, Adam, and I began walking through secondary infertility. It was a decades-long trek of fear, prayer and wondering whether we would have more children. I spent so many years worrying about it. I put so much pressure on myself.
HRTB hit me from a different angle, and it was one that I needed.
You see, I had high hopes of being a large, Lutheran family. I came from a larger family myself. Bring on the multi-passenger van transporting a gaggle of homeschooled, slightly-nerdy-but-athletic DeGroots!
It was the dream.
It never became a reality.
And here is what made the conversations surrounding He Remembers the Barren so important to me.
During the fretting and faithful reckoning throughout my thirties, I felt this was a conversation our church body needed to have more openly anyway. Within the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, I was seeing a renewed appreciation for our confessional and liturgical heritage. There was much good in that. Along with it came a strong and thoroughly biblical affirmation of marriage, children, and family.
Thanks be to God for that.
But I felt pressure, too. It was compelling at times – yet not always in the best way: like there existed a stress to have “all the kids” to not only grow the church but have more joy in your life. I had pious people say some well-meaning yet off-putting things to me (“Just stop working and go have kids,” “Relax, and it will happen”) that simply didn’t fully align with what God says and our good understanding of the doctrine of vocation. I don’t begrudge them or hold any resentments. I certainly held some of those beliefs, too. It just didn’t happen for us that way.
Singleness. Barrenness. Miscarraige. Secondary Infertilty. Adoption. Families that don’t look the way we imagined they would. Our doctrine of vocation is beautifully spacious precisely because the Lord is the One who gives and takes away our callings.
Those were some of the conversations Katie and I began having all those years ago. I was (and still am) grateful to be a cheerleader and small contributor in the arena—to encourage the conversation, to have seen this blog created, and the book published.
And then there were Kristi and Rebecca, whose experiences helped fill in still more of the picture. Different women. Different stories. Different kinds of suffering connected to barrenness and their own way of articulating it. Yet the same need for substance.
Fifteen years later, I think that is what I appreciate most.
Barrenness has a way of confronting us with just how little control any of us actually have. We can enjoy the intimacy of marriage. Make appointments. Try treatments. Change diets. Track, plan, pray and de-stress! Those things can be good and worthwhile. But eventually, we run into the limits of our own ability to make life happen according to our plans.
Which can be terrifying, but also expose some of the false gods we didn’t realize we were carrying.
For me, one of them was the idea that my family needed to look or be a certain way for me to feel that I had somehow measured up. “Image Manager” was a false calling that I created to feel valuable and worthy. I put pressure on myself that God simply had not put on me. Perhaps I even put that pressure on others, too.
And suffering has a way of bringing those things into the light.
I’m 47 years old now. My perspective has definitely changed over the past fifteen years. Marriage, motherhood, ministry, friendships, disappointments, and simply getting older have shaped and refined how I think, speak and serve. As a result, I have let go of so many things. But acceptance of what is doesn’t require me to pretend that all my thoughts, hopes and feelings weren’t somehow real, unholy or unwarranted.
The longing for a child is real. The disappointment is real.
Yet Christ is just as real yesterday, today and forever.
That is where I hope this conversation continues to lead.
Christ does not meet us merely as an idea or a theological explanation for why suffering exists. He comes to us in the flesh. He comes every time His Word is preached and His Sacraments are administered. He surrounds us with sisters and brothers in Christ, with pastors, deaconesses, pious friends, and the whole family of God. Because we still need forgiveness and the Church, no matter what stage of life we’re in.
And sometimes, through those people, He even gives us the gift of feeling some (or a lot) of the comfort He has already promised to us.
What a gift it is when a sister in Christ sits beside me and says, “I know this hurts.” What a gift when a pastor speaks Christ’s promises into suffering. What a gift when another woman’s story reminds me that I’m not alone.
Though, whether we feel it or not, assurance is based on the truth of God’s Word. We are redeemed, precious, and loved. Christ’s death and resurrection has power, even now, to bring us faith to trust that no matter the trial, He is still with us.
So fifteen years later, I’m grateful to contribute to this conversation again. I’m grateful for Katie, Kristi, and Rebecca, and the many women and men who have been willing to speak honestly about barrenness, infertility, miscarriage, adoption and a host of other life issues. I’m grateful that He Remembers the Barren became a place where these conversations could happen.
And I’m curious about where it goes from here.
Maybe fifteen years have given us a little more perspective. Maybe we can speak about these things with greater spiritual maturity—without minimizing suffering, but also without allowing suffering to have the final word.
Because while it’s real, Christ is more real still.
And He has not forgotten us.
Looking back and moving forward, God is always remembering us, even when our memories fail and fade.
God continue to bless and strengthen us as we seek to share our unique experiences, strength, and hope in Him now in our midlife years. Perhaps this blog commemoration is a connection point to a new generation who are walking through these hardships, a generation who may be seeking a sisterly, motherly (gosh, some might even say, grandmotherly), ear to listen, receive love and care with greater understanding and grace. I hope so.
Because while striving to serve each other well, to care for and raise faithful children, God reminds us Christ crucified and risen for us is the only Way, Truth and Life certain in this world.
Ides years later, God continue to bless these conversations and this blog as He sees fit.
It has been 15 years since this blog was born. Can you believe it?
Our lives have changed much since Rebecca, Kristi, Melissa and I first started blogging about barrenness. Some of our crosses remain, others have been lifted, and still others have been exchanged.
We first ceased blogging all of those years ago, not because barrenness and secondary infertility no longer affect us, but because we thought it wise for our readers to start engaging more with their pastors face-to-face about their suffering, especially on matters of the conscience.
But we would like to honor the 15th anniversary of the first edition of He Remembers the Barren’s publication as well as this blog’s birth by announcing that we plan to blog every day in the coming month of October.
Because we are older and, we pray, wiser.
And because miscarriages, adoption, IVF, endometriosis, secondary infertility, grief, and all the things still affect us.
And because we would like to re-engage in that centuries-old Christian tradition of comforting you with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted (2 Cor. 1:3-4).
Andy Bates and Sarah Gulseth of KFUO Radio’s “The Coffee Hour” chatted with us last week about our Lenten writing contest.
Listen here for details on what we’re looking for in your submission on the prompt, “I waited patiently for the LORD; He inclined to me and heard my cry” (Psalm 40:1).
Remember, this contest is for anyone who breathes, has chromosomes, and reads the Bible.
Submit your entries to katie@katieschuermann.com by noon on March 25th to be considered for the grand prize: a museum-quality giclée print (14.7″ x 18″) of artist Edward Riojas’ cover art for the second edition of He Remembers the Barren.
Special thanks to Katy Cloninger for today’s guest post. Her words of empathy, compassion, and truth are a welcome start to the day.
What does it mean to be barren? Merriam-Webster coldly and bleakly defines it as “incapable of producing offspring,” or “not yet or not recently pregnant.” But on a personal level, there are as many kinds of barrenness as there are barren women.
Some women fall into what may be called the classic category: they have never been able to get pregnant, no matter how much they try to “take charge of their fertility.” Others have been able to conceive but not to carry a child to term. Yet others have carried a pregnancy to term, but the baby was stillborn. Lord, have mercy on us all.
Other women suffer from secondary infertility. They have had one or more children, but for whatever reason, or no apparent reason at all, they cannot have any more. Such cases are made even sadder when the one child a woman has is taken from her by SIDS or some other tragic circumstance. Lord, have mercy on us all.
There are women who have had abortions before they knew the value of life, or knew it but were coerced, and the procedure took away not only the child they had but the ability to have children later on. Or perhaps some other surgery, necessary to preserve their own life, robbed them of the ability to bring more life into the world. Lord, have mercy on us all.
Then there are those women who never found a suitable husband, though their greatest desire was to be a loving wife and mother. Others have found husbands, but their husbands have turned out not to want children, or there are difficulties consummating the marriage, or their husbands have abandoned them, terminating all dreams of a happy home full of children. Perhaps the husband is the sterile spouse. Or perhaps the husband met an untimely death, leaving his young and hopeful wife a widow in her prime childbearing years. Lord, have mercy on us all.
No doubt there are many more kinds of barrenness than I have named. And for every person touched by barrenness, the individual details and complications add layer upon layer of sorrow and grief. Often we feel completely unique and alone in our pain.
But that feeling is a satanic lie, for the Bible tells us so.
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,” Isaiah prophesies of Jesus, “yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (Is 53:4). This Jesus, the Son of the Virgin, indeed “grew up before [the LORD] like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground” (v. 2), for the very purpose that He would be “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (v. 3)—for us and for our salvation. Though our suffering is unique in some ways, it is common in that we all suffer the effects of sin; we all suffer the death-in-life of existing in a fallen world. We need a Savior to come and suffer for us the true forsaking of God so that we can be assured that God will never forsake us (Heb 13:5).
But because we are in Christ, our suffering leads ultimately to glorification. St. Peter instructs that “those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good” (1 Pet 4:19), and to “rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed” (v. 13). St. Paul picks up on the same theme. He reminds us that we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom 8:17). Paul later adds that “those whom [God] foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son” (v. 29)—an image that is first cruciform, and only later glorified.
Nevertheless, Paul comforts us that our sufferings are brief and, with Peter, he encourages us to await the revelation of God’s glory in our now-broken selves: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18). Our glorification is so certain that Paul can speak of it in the past tense: “those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called he also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified” (v. 30). Even now, Paul tells us, the Holy Spirit is bringing forth fruit as we suffer; we can “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:3–5).
In our present vale of tears, we may not know why God sends us this cross or that one. But we are assured that somehow, it is for our good: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28).
Our crosses, whatever they be, are always hard to bear—would be impossible to bear without God’s constant and mighty aid. But even if we are not bearing fruit in our wombs, the Holy Spirit is bearing fruit in us. So we wait with patience, trusting that the God who opens and closes our wombs knows best, and knowing that the glorification of our fallen world—and our fallen bodies—is at hand.
Katy Cloninger is a freelance copyeditor and the divorced mother of one. She has a BA in English from Newberry College and is a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, SC. She loves reading, writing, hearing, teaching, and singing about her Savior Jesus Christ and the marvelous truths of God’s Word.
I often am asked, “How do I tell my barren friend that I am pregnant?”
Personal preferences are always personal, so I cannot speak for every woman. However, I can share with you exactly how I want to receive the news of another’s pregnancy: personally and in private.
And if that personal, private pregnancy announcement is accompanied by a sincere invitation for me to take part in my pregnant friend’s joy, then I find that I often can, indeed, rejoice in the gift given to her. While it always hurts to remain barren when others are blessed, I recognize the tender care in being sought out ahead of the crowd. I see the extended kindness in being invited to join in on the celebration. Being remembered is always a better experience for me than being left alone.
But do you know what helps me the most during these times of grief? I am greatly comforted and encouraged when my pregnant friend rightly believes and confesses that her child is a gift from God, and that confession is often expressed — not through a cheeky Instagram picture or a clever Facebook announcement — but through a dignified email such as this:
Katie,
Several times in the past year, I felt quite a bit like Hannah — weeping bitterly before the Lord. I wondered many times why He didn’t remember me, as He remembered her. But the Lord is faithful and merciful, and He has remembered me. We found out last month that I am pregnant. And while this news has come with much joy and thanksgiving, it has also come with great grief. In my joy, I can’t help but think of all my sisters who, like Hannah, also weep bitterly before the Lord, and yet do not receive the gift of a child.
I pray for you and your husband often. I pray that He will shower you with the same blessings He has given me and my husband through our children. But more importantly, I pray He will grant you peace and comfort, and remind you ever that you are His, and that His love for you endures forever.
God’s blessings to you in all that you do.
In Christ,
Leah
Leah, in the midst of her rejoicing, chooses to remember — even share in — my grief.
And in the safety of such obvious love, I find it quite easy to share in her joy.
In what could be considered a mental exercise in futility, a personal question has been nagging me: How is the suffering of barrenness akin to the grief of losing a loved one?
I suppose it’s an unfair question since there are many nuances to each affliction, and everyone handles suffering and grief differently. But I’ll take a stab at it since I have been carrying both crosses — the death of my mother most recently, and secondary infertility seven years after my son’s birth — for awhile now. For those who know back-to-back trials like a well-worn shoe, this is my feeble attempt at processing it out loud.
As Christians who are given the life-giving Word which forgives, renews, and strengthens, far be it from us to despair when tragedy strikes or we endure years of longsuffering. Right?
Eesh. What an anvil of condemnation since, if we’re honest, we do despair. We also grieve and suffer along with any other human being on earth because of the Old Adam and Eve in us.
So when it comes to death and barrenness, it is natural that any and all feelings surface. And it is sadly normal that temptations to sin arise as we hold dear what relationship we had to our departed loved one and perhaps what relationships never will be, desperately looking into things where there are no promises. Both command soul-piercing attention, because there is a very real separation, divide (a hiddenness) between people who existed in this world and those who never may.
Such suffering beckons us to look at separation and spiritual hiddenness (and perhaps the anxiety and distress that naturally follow) through a Biblical lens. We know we are connected to all the saints in Christ, but far be it for us to deliver lofty comforts with verses such as “Be anxious about nothing” without compassion. We do well to allow God to put His Word together for us through His faithful under-shepherds, our family, and friends in Christ who can and do walk alongside us in our suffering.
Luther’s pastoral letters to several friends who suffered terrible losses are tender and convicting. He always starts by realizing the natural expression of grief, especially when it is so new. He recognizes and empathizes with the agonies. Luther then moves from his own empathy to confessing God’s inscrutable kindness in Christ’s ability to identify with our suffering, loss, grief, and loneliness by overcoming it all in His crucifixion. He concludes his letters with understanding our limitations and proclaiming that God gives us all that we need — namely faith — to sojourn this side of heaven.
“How should we conduct ourselves in such a situation? God has so ordered and limited our life here that we may learn and exercise the knowledge of His very good will so that we may test and discover whether we love and esteem His will more than ourselves and everything that He had given us to have and love on earth. And although the inscrutable goodness of the divine will is hidden (as is God himself) from the old Adam as something so great and profound that man finds no pleasure in it, but only grief and lamentation, we nevertheless have His holy and sure Word which reveals to us this hidden will of His and gladdens the heart of the believer.”1
So much to parse out here, but “finding no pleasure in God’s hidden will” stands out the most to me as such an honest testament in the midst of suffering. And still God delivers us. All to say that Luther as pastor is a beautiful example of all the faithful pastors, the family, and friends we have in our own midst now who empathize, gently encourage, and comfort us at the right times. It has certainly been what my family and I have experienced in coping with our own crosses. Thanks be to God.
How is barrenness akin to the loss of a loved one? Both can cause us to isolate or scatter from the fellowship of believers that God creates for our benefit. Then again, both afflictions can and do also bring us together because God knows we need each other. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away from us, yes, but He never leaves or forsakes us — though His presence is hidden under means. And sending faithful, compassionate Christians is one of the ways He abides. Blessed be the name of the Lord!
God grant us all the tender mercies we are promised through His Word so that we might grieve without shame, while confessing the hope that is within us in Christ. God give us the strength to accept our afflictions and serve one another in love. Amen.
To John Reineck, April 18, 1536: Letters, 69-70 (WA Br 7.399-400).
Special thanks to Katy Cloninger for today’s guest post. Her words of empathy, compassion, and truth are a welcome start to the day.
I often am asked, “How do I tell my barren friend that I am pregnant?”
