Suffering

Wise Words

Here is a little something my mama wrote to me in an email the other day. And, yes, she is this cool in person. If you haven’t already, I hope you get to meet her someday (as well as sit down at her breakfast table to eat her homemade, whole grain waffles with home-grown blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries on top).

It would seem that most of us are not blessed in the way in which we anticipate being blessed.  I would suggest that our fallen human vision is too limited to identify what constitutes a blessing. We must rely on our heavenly Father’s promise that He is blessing us, that He desires only what is best for each of us individually – and that includes those whom we love so dearly. How amazing! What grace! God grant me that faith! 

I believe that through my life experiences, God has shown me grace to understand that it is natural for my fallen nature to have earthly expectations and even to make those thoughts into requests of Him; however, I must concede His all-knowing, perfect, gracious, merciful, and good will to provide me with what I need to grow and mature in Him – to call me into the vocations that will use the gifts with which He has blessed me. I have learned that it is more important to BE His child than to serve any other purpose on earth, no matter how strongly my misguided heart and mind desire otherwise than that which He provides me….and He gives me the Holy Spirit to persevere and not grow weary, as He equips me to serve Him and others.

Where Is the Line?

Question Submitted: I realize we have all been given different gifts, but the gift of children (or not) is such a sensitive issue. I am blessed to have mine. How much of my joy in my children am I able to share with my barren friends without hurting them? I don’t feel I should necessarily hide my joy in my own children…but there is perhaps a line somewhere to consider.

The line is in God’s commandment to serve our neighbor. Here’s what it looks like:

I have a friend whose mother died of cancer several years ago. I know that every time I speak of my mother, go out in public with my mother, write something about my mother, or even post a status on Facebook about my mother, I am treading on sensitive ground. With my words and actions, I am calling to mind that which she has lost and possibly causing her to suffer. Because of this, I try to speak, write, and act in such a way that has her best in mind.

This does not mean I cease celebrating the gift of my mother. It just means that I know my mother is a precious gift I neither merit nor deserve, so I try not to boast of her in front of my neighbor. Instead, I thank God for my mother, try to honor her, and strive to live out my vocation as daughter in service to her.

Children are another gift from God, and they should be received with all thankfulness, joy, and celebration. Yet, God’s commandment still holds true: everything we say and do should be in service to our neighbor. So, my best advice would be to thank God for your children, delight in their accomplishments, and celebrate their milestones as they come and go, but do so in public with your neighbor’s best in mind.

(A quick note for my barren sisters: Children truly are a gift given from God, even when they are not given to us. It is a good thing when another baby is born into this world. I know it is hard not to covet the children of your neighbors, but I think you will find it easier to join in on the celebration of your neighbors’ children when you take an active role in their lives. Suddenly, their celebrations are your celebrations, their joys your joys. It can be hard to celebrate when you are always on the sidelines. Vocation makes all the difference. Just some food for thought…)

You’re So Lucky!

Another honest, empathic moment from our dear Joanna…

I wrote this a few years ago when a long-time friend and mother told me how lucky I was not to have any children. A product of the anguish of the moment, it came out like I was vomiting it onto the paper. It’s strange; when I read this now, I know that’s what I was feeling at the time, but I don’t find myself reliving those feelings. You would think that rereading it would open it all up again, but, at least today, it doesn’t. It’s strange how that works. I guess it’s kind of like my hysterectomy scar. The surgery happened, the scar is there, but the remembrance of the pain and the jaggedness of the scar have faded. Jesus has walked with me through it to the other side.
 
How Lucky I Am
 
“You’re so lucky!
You have free time
To go wherever you want,
And do whatever you want,
And you never have to clean up after kids!
I wish I were in your shoes!”
 
“You never get awakened in the middle of the night by a screaming child,
And you never spend time chasing toddlers,
Or changing diapers,
Or dealing with teenagers.
You have no idea how lucky you are!”
 
Maybe you’re right…I guess I’ve never thought about how lucky I am.
 
How lucky for me never to have felt life growing inside,
Or given birth,
Or chosen a name,
Or to hear “I love you, Mommy” from the lips of a child.
 
How lucky I am to have prayed each month for a miracle,
Only to have endless cycles come and go,
And hope forever deferred.
 
I’m lucky to have been poked and prodded,
To have had my private life put under a microscope.
And to endure endless expensive tests and surgeries,
In the hopes of a joy that never was.
 
How lucky I am to be told once and again to “Relax” or “Adopt,”
Or try this or that remedy;
And to be gracious to the people telling me,
Because, “People are just trying to help.”
 
How lucky I am to have had my only child die,
Its tiny life slipping away.
Knowing that I would give anything to stop it
But couldn’t.
 
I’m lucky to have never seen my husband’s kind eyes
Reflected in the eyes of our child,
To have never given him the child
That he, too, longed for and wanted to hold;
Or my dear parents the grandchild
That they secretly longed to see.
 
How lucky I am to walk through this life
Alone among women.
Never really fitting in.
First with the mothers, then the grandmothers —
Forever standing on the outside…looking in.
 
I’m lucky to have no children to nurture,
To teach all the things that I’ve learned,
Or to joyfully watch as they grow.
Learning a little bit more about life,
By seeing the world anew through their eyes.
 
How lucky it is that the days never change,
They go endlessly on the same 
Each day until death.
No first steps, graduations, weddings, or grandchildren
Will ever fill my empty days.
 
I’m lucky to face all the questions,
Like, “Why did this happen?”
And “Will it ever be our turn?”
And “Was it something we did?”
…Or maybe something we didn’t do.
Oh, and “How long, and how much, and how hard should we try?”
“And what about adoption?”
These are lucky questions, indeed.
 
How lucky I am to watch the years roll by never changing,
Endlessly the same.
And to watch others taking for granted
The joys that I longed to know.
 
How lucky I am to face old age on this earth,
With only my husband, should God allow us long life;
And to wonder who God will send to care for us,
If something happens to one — 
Or when we simply can no longer care for ourselves.
 
How lucky I am to have no one to remember who I was or how I lived
When I have passed from this earth.
To know that my possessions will be auctioned away to strangers,
And there will be no obituary to tell of my life — 
Because obituaries are written by the children.
 
You’re so right…I am lucky —
If that’s what you mean by “luck.”
I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.
But I don’t think that’s what you’d want.
 
Through all of this pain, God’s love has never failed,
And I rest in His loving hands.
But every once in awhile I get tired
Of parents glibly telling me
Just how lucky I am.
 

What do I say this Mother’s Day?

Question Submitted: My friend and her husband were pregnant with their first child this year, but she miscarried.  I would like to know how to approach Mother’s Day for her.  I want to acknowledge the child that God created in her, but I also want to offer her sympathy in her loss. What words of encouragement would you suggest?

First, thank you for loving your friend enough to recognize that this may be a difficult day for her and for wanting to be there for her. She will treasure your thoughtfulness no matter what you say. I’m not terribly verbose myself, so I prefer the straightforward approach. What you wrote in your question was very sincere and completely appropriate. What if you said something like, “I know today may be tough for you. I’ve been thinking of you and how, even though it was for such a short time, God chose to make you a mother this past year. I’m sorry it was so brief. I just wanted you to know how much I care about you and pray for you, especially today. Can I (take you out for some dessert, come over for some tea, fill in the blank) to commemorate today?”

Maybe you were looking for something more encouraging or Scriptural, I don’t know. But speaking from personal experience, when people have come up to me to express sympathy and they give me a speech telling me things I already know, sharing with me some intellectual or spiritual knowledge, I don’t necessarily feel encouraged. I have the head knowledge, it’s just my heart that’s aching. When someone acknowledges the pain I’m in and tries to put themselves in my shoes in order to best reach out to me, followed by a kind action (or at least an offer) I see a sincere concern and I am comforted. I don’t feel alone then. This is, of course, assuming that your friend is regularly hearing God’s promises to her each week in church. If not, then it is absolutely appropriate to include these in your talk with her.

I’m sure that whatever you say she will be grateful.

Do You Know a Good Guy?

Rebecca and I were talking the other day.

We have this friend. She is the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow.

She is the catch of the century, and we want nothing more than to see her married and settled and loved and taken care of by a superstar husband. We want her dreams of being a housewife and mother fulfilled. We want the comfort of knowing that she has a man there to provide for her and protect her day and night. We want the open-ended question of her marriage status to be answered, closed, sealed, stamped, and delivered so that we can hear the swell of romantic music and feel those Anne-and-Gilbert warm fuzzies whenever we think of her.

Basically, we want her to have what we have, and it is hard not to flip through the little black books in our minds and try to set her up with Mr. Right.

Yet, God has not given our friend the gift of a husband today, and spending all of our time, energy, love, and attention trying to fix her marriage status is no different than others trying to fix our barrenness.

Lord, forgive us! Save our friend from our own wants and help her to rejoice in the good gifts You have given her today. Amen.

A Change of Heart – Part 3

A continuation of A Change of Heart -Part 2…

Keisha couldn’t give me a due date. At one point she said it was the end of March and another time she said it was the beginning of April. She asked me to attend a doctor’s appointment with her that no one at the doctor’s office seemed to know anything about.  Things were getting really strange. Then in January the contact with Keisha diminished considerably. She wouldn’t return calls from the agency. She had stopped contacting me. I left messages for her to explain what the agency needed in order to continue preparations for the adoption. She finally called back in February to explain that her phone had been stolen and things were not good with the boyfriend again. Her voice was strained and she sounded tired and overwhelmed. She said she would call me back when things settled down.

I never heard from her again.

Ben and I had, on several occasions, given Keisha suggestions on ways to get out of her chaotic lifestyle, to find help, find a job, move out of the stressful situation she was living in and make a better home for her children. The agency had resources in place for this, too, which is why we had encouraged her to utilize them. But she didn’t and we couldn’t make her, nor did we feel comfortable stepping in and taking over the decisions that were hers to make.

March came and went and so did April. There was no last-minute phone call from the hospital, announcing that she had had the baby and was now ready to finish the adoption process. We had to face it: she had certainly had the baby by then and we were not going to be the parents.

The Lord, in His mercy, had protected our hearts from too much anticipation during this whole ordeal. On many occasions Ben and I discussed how this experience was more than likely just an opportunity to pray for this mother and her children, regardless of the outcome. The agency had warned us that these unusual “matchings” rarely resulted in a placement. We appreciated their candidness and acted on their advice on how to deal with Keisha. This caution kept us from experiencing a real heartbreak when the relationship gradually ceased. We were sincerely concerned for Keisha and her welfare, for the future of this new child and the other children, but we knew that we had done what we could to help and it wasn’t in our hands anymore. To this day we have no idea if Keisha had a boy or girl or if she’s raising the child herself. We sometimes wonder if she was ever really pregnant and if not, why did she act like it? We will probably never know. We just trust that she and her family are in the hands of our loving Heavenly Father, in whom she confessed a strong faith.

I still see the very young single moms at the bus stops and parks and grocery stores, but I look at them differently now. I consider what their pasts may have been like and what options they see for themselves for the future. Now I see not just what they have that I don’t, but I see what’s missing–what I have that they might not. I wonder if it’s a Keisha I’m passing by.

Seeing these women now stirs up compassion instead of jealousy. I have a new perspective that I didn’t have before I met Keisha and was welcomed into her life for such a brief period of time. Even though we invested so much of ourselves into this potential adoption without the joy of bringing a baby home, I still have to thank God for using this experience to open my eyes. I thank God for giving me a change of heart.

The Cross of Barrenness

What is the cross of barrenness? Surely it is one of loss and death and grief, but many in the church don’t realize that the cross of barrenness is also one of warring against the world’s religion of control. The world expects us to manage and control our fertility, so, naturally, that same world also expects us to manage and control our infertility – never mind whether or not we really can.

It is not uncommon for friends, even strangers, to school me in this art of control, this “sure science” of making a baby. A woman standing behind a school lunch counter once told me, “Be sure to keep your cervix lifted for at least thirty minutes after intercourse.” A lady at a party said to me in front of a circle of friends, “Your husband could be shooting blanks. Get his sperm’s motility checked out.” A stranger sitting to my left at a women’s luncheon leaned over and announced during the main course, “My daughter was infertile, but she finally had a baby last spring through In Vitro Fertilization. You should go to her doctor.” A woman at a local farmer’s market stopped me to tell me that taking her suggested brand of vitamin supplements would even out my hormone levels and result in a pregnancy.

I don’t know what to say in return to those who publicly offer advice on sexual techniques or medically misdiagnose my husband’s fertility or tell me to engage in medical procedures that break the First and Fifth Commandments of my Lord. Giving a verbal response to those comments feels like I am somehow validating the very existence of them. If I share with the woman at the market that my hormone levels are already stable, then I am engaging her in conversation about something that is so personal and painful. I am inviting her to continue making suggestions and diagnoses and comments about my barrenness. I am giving her permission to continue trying to find a fix for my problem. I am handing her the salt well and telling her to rub it in my open wound. So, instead of telling her the truth, I simply thank her for her advice, and I keep walking. Then, I go home, and I cry.

I cry, because every time a well-meaning person tells me how to make a baby, I am tempted to believe that I can control my barrenness, that my present childlessness is my own doing, my own fault. I must be doing something wrong. I must be missing a key nutrient in my diet; I must be exercising too much or too little; I must have high levels of prolactin or low levels of progesterone; I must not be producing enough Type E mucus to sustain the lives of the sperm in my uterus; I must not be going to the right doctor. I must, I must, I must. When a well-meaning person makes suggestions to me in my pain and grief, I feel the weight, the burden, the law of my barrenness fully on my own shoulders.

Yet, I cannot control my barrenness. I know this, because God tells me in His Word that children are a heritage from Him – a gift – and that good gift is received, not manufactured or made. God is the Giver, and I am the receiver. And, at the end of the day, my faith must believe what God tells me in His Word, not what the woman tells me at the market.

Puzzled

Our household does not have a dual income.  My husband is the provider.  I stay home, making our home a safe and pleasant place.  I enjoy preparing meals and tending my garden.  I don’t find quite so much joy in dusting and ironing (which I rarely do).

There are moments, too, when I have some free time.  I can read or sew.  Recently, I’ve started doing puzzles.  The current one has 500 pieces.  I’m frustrated by this puzzle because its colors are only various shades of brown.  I sit down to put some pieces together and walk away without finding a single match.  I get tense. I think, “I can’t even put together a puzzle.  How could I be expected to have a baby?”  During those moments, I wonder if I should go back into the work force.  Maybe I’d feel better about myself if I was “contributing to society” instead of “tending the hearth.”

Therein lies my sin.  I’ve started listening to the voices of society.  They say, “Get out there and do something.”  That’s when it’s time to redirect my attention. It’s time to listen to the voice of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.  What does He tell me in Scripture?  I need to confess my sin of idolatry.  The Lord will provide for the needs of my family.  He has already given me His Word and Holy Sacraments.  I am forgiven; I am His child.

I have no idea what God’s plan is for me regarding family life.  I don’t know if my family size will grow or remain the same.  I don’t know if there will ever be grandchildren.  Who will care for me and my husband in our golden years?

The Lord knows.  He is the One who formed me.  He knew me in my mother’s womb.  He knows my life’s steps.  He has given me the vocations of wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend.  I don’t have to worry about how to make everything fit into its proper place.  God has it covered; He’s taking care of everything.  No need for me to be puzzled about that.

Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is almost here.

I have such mixed feelings every second Sunday in May. I enjoy celebrating my mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, godmother, sisters, friends, and all of the other women in my life who make sacrifices to care for me, yet…you know.

There’s that whole I’m-not-a-mother thing.

The awkwardness is unavoidable. I am now too old to remain an inconspicuous, innocent daughter of the church who simply joins in on the celebration of the matriarchs around me. I am a childless, married woman – one of those alien non-mothers – and everyone has to suffer through the uneasy, painful, blushing, frozen, horrible moments of trying to figure out what to say to me on Mother’s Day.

I feel it most for the poor ushers delegated to hand out carnations. I know they want to give me a flower – I can see the chivalrous struggle in their eyes! –  but I have “childless” stamped across my forehead. So, they hand me a service bulletin, instead. “I’m sorry,” one of them inevitably whispers during the exchange, and I am left in the inelegant position of comforting others for my own childlessness.

How did things get to be this way? When did we decide that it was good, right, and salutary in church to give out discriminatory gifts as a coda to Christ’s gifts of Word and Sacrament?

I am going to be blunt. Mother’s Day is a secular holiday that has worked its way into our Sunday services. I am not of the opinion that we should stop celebrating mothers. Quite the opposite, I think we should celebrate mothers every day of the week and with more than just flowers and praise. We should be offering them our time and talents to help them in their God-given vocation of caring for others as well as praying that God would sustain them as they daily die to self in order to serve our youngest church members.

I don’t even think we should stop commemorating Mother’s Day in church. At this point, it would be culturally rude to withdraw from the church the tradition of honoring women whom God has gifted with children, but we need to be mindful of the pain this secular, gift-card-selling holiday inflicts on those from whom God has withheld the gift of children. Sometimes, pastors (often unknowingly) drag this secular holiday’s pain into their sermons, their children’s sermons, their preservice announcement anecdotes, and their prayers. In an effort to be culturally relevant, they slay the barren in the pews and grieve the hearts of mothers who have lost or are estranged from their children.

Perhaps, instead, pastors could use Mother’s Day as an opportunity to use gift language and remind their congregations to celebrate all of the women who serve as mothers in the church: godmothers, aunts, school teachers, deaconesses, babysitters, sewing circles, LWML, secretaries, altar guild, VBS bakers, and every woman who faithfully lives out her vocation in service to others. Perhaps, we could give these women carnations, too – not to dismiss the love we have for the mothers who bore and raised us, but to properly recognize that motherhood is a vocation given by God, not an achievement rewarded by men.