Suffering

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.

Keeping Watch

I had let my guard down too soon.  I cried.  I grieved for that which was not given to me.

Thanks be to God for you, my dear sisters, who kept watch with me.  You listened and didn’t try to offer a rosy outcome.  You hugged me and cried with me.  You gave me space to let it all out.  You reminded me that I am God’s child, and you prayed for me.  You sent me a baby elephant.  Thank you.

Here We Come!

Won’t you come out and meet us?

Rebecca Mayes and I, God willing, are getting behind the wheel next Tuesday in hopes of meeting YOU. We will be presenting on the topic “Caring for the Barren Woman” at Concordia University Chicago, Concordia Theological Seminary, and various churches in Michigan and Indiana. And – Best of all! – my husband is coming with us. Rev. Michael Schuermann will be available to answer any questions you may have regarding how to care for the barren man.

Location and presentation details can be found here.

If you would like any of the HeRemembersTheBarren.com hosts to present “Caring for the Barren Woman” at a church near you, please let us know via the “Submit a Question” page on this website.

We can’t wait to meet you!

* Photo by Adriane Dorr

A Holy Saturday Reflection

Johann Gerhard was a pastor and prolific writer from the 17th century. His book, An Explanation of the History of the Suffering and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a must-read during Lent. Here are some excerpts from the section about Christ’s suffering as it began in the Garden of Gethsemane:

If it also ever happens that God gives us a little drink from this chalice of inner (spiritual) suffering and agony of heart, we are to be patient and are to remember how insignificantly this is to be regarded compared to the great flood which overcame Christ. Sink all your pains in this agony of Christ. Thus they will easily vanish like a tiny particle of dust in the sunshine. And that is precisely the reason that God the Lord at times portrays Himself as if He has hidden His countenance, allowing us to experience a bit of heart-anquish so that we may see what Christ endured for us and thank Him for it (pgs. 66-67).

“Take away this cup from Me,” Christ said. Thus it is not improper that one petition God to avert or alleviate a cross. However, it must immediately follow thereupon and occur at the same time that one commits everything to the fatherly will of God. Just as Christ here says: “Yet not My will, rather Your will take place.” Even though Christ, as true Man, indeed felt human emotions and asked for the averting of this chalice, He nevertheless immediately forthwith put His will under the will of God [the Father]. We must do this much more, for many times we do not know for what we should pray (Rom. 8). However, as our dear Father, God’s will is always the best (pgs. 68-69).

You DO Have Joy!

You have joy.

Yes, you do, even when you don’t feel like it. We carry in our bodies not only the death of Jesus but also His life. This joy is true and present for you even when you suffer in your childlessness.

I commend to you this Issues, Etc. interview with Heidi Sias, author and speaker. Listen to it and be reminded of the joy that is yours amidst your suffering.

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD.”
Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

For the Lord will not cast off forever,
but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?

I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear to my cry for help!”
You came near when I called on you; you said, “Do not fear!”

You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.

Lamentations 3:17-26, 31-33, 37-38, 55-58 (ESV)

Let us pray…

Most High, You bid us in Your Word to wait on You. As the days turn into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years, remind us that Your mercies are new every morning. Assure us of your abundant, steadfast love to us in Jesus, that we might rejoice in the waiting, knowing You to be our Portion, our Hope, and our Redeemer forever, no matter what it is You may speak to come to pass. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(It is our privilege to pray with and for you. If you would like to submit a personal petition to be included in our prayers, please send your request via the “Submit a Question” page on this site.)

Proof of the Promises

I know you have days filled with doubt. I do, too.

Does God really remember childless, insignificant, little me? Will He really sustain and keep me through all of this grief and loss?

Yes, my sister, He does, and He will.

My pastor told me about your blog just yesterday. I’m just beginning to get familiar with it, but I can tell from the brief time I’ve been able to spend here so far that it is a wonderful site. The name alone rings so very true! I didn’t have a resource like this as I walked through my 20+ years of actively hoping to have children (and having one miscarriage), nor did I  really know anyone who had been, or was also going through, the pain of infertility. It was a lonely road most of the time, and a resource like this would have been so very comforting! Thank you for opening your hearts to provide comfort to others.

At age 46, having had a hysterectomy several years ago, the door of motherhood is now closed to me for good. I can tell you that through it all, God has sustained and kept me, and has never forgotten me — even when it sometimes really felt like it! His plans for me were different, but they were not less. I am 46 and childless, with all that entails, but I no longer consider myself to be barren. Our dear Lord provides daily opportunities for me to bear fruit as I abide in Him. And in what seems to me to be this very “late” season in my life (which is really all in His good timing), He is even opening the door for me to put my mothering instincts to use in caring for the elderly folks at our church as a volunteer staff member while I pursue deaconess training. He is so very faithful, and there is not a single one of our days that are not in His keeping!

I’m not sure why I’m telling you all of this, other than to say from the perspective of someone who has reached the end of the fertility road without any (living) children, that God is faithful. He loves you dearly, He has not forgotten you, and He makes all things beautiful in their appointed time. May God bless and keep you all as you walk this difficult path. I will be praying for you, dear sisters!

Joanna Barnes

Getting Outside of Ourselves

We all know the danger of dwelling on our own suffering. All any of us needs to do is take a short jaunt down “Me Lane” to find ourselves right in the middle of dreaded Despairville.

What if we avoided “Me Lane” altogether? What if, instead, we made a hard right turn onto “Neighbor Avenue” and took a trip to Mercyburg to visit our sisters in Christ? Think of what we would find there.

No doubt, we would run into other barren women in need of a comforting shoulder, but I think we would also discover women who suffer in the vocation of motherhood; women who pine for the independence and quietude of our own childless lives; women who suffer physical pain from birthing and caring for their precious gifts; women who fear the very gifting from God which we so desperately crave.

What if we set aside our own suffering for today and spent some time listening to those mothers, shouldering their grief and pain, praying for their strength, and tending to their physical needs? I think we would find great joy in the act of caring for our neighbor. Maybe we would even gain some insight into God’s wisdom of giving and withholding certain gifts from our own lives. At the very least, I think we would find comfort in knowing that we do not suffer alone in the body of Christ.

So, will you take a walk down “Neighbor Avenue” with me and meet my friend Rebekah? She wrote a book on the struggles of breastfeeding, and I cannot recommend it enough. I have never given birth to a child, never breastfed a baby, yet I resonated with the language of suffering in this real-life saga. I think you will, too.

And, c’mon. Just look at that title. You know there will be laughs on this trip.

More Glimpses into a Mom’s Heart

Katie’s blog has helped us all open up the lines of communication about barrenness with our spouses, friends, churches and family members. Following suit, I also sent my mom some questions about her experience having two daughters who struggle with infertility and what it was like to welcome an adopted child into the family. Her words are a glimpse into her heart, which she doesn’t often expose in an effort to be strong for her children. I believe she gives a voice to the thoughts and fears that many mothers have but are afraid to share. Thanks mom, for your honesty, compassion, and encouragement over the years. You’ve had to hold up under the strain of this as well–times two.

Watching both of my daughters suffer in their barrenness has been heart wrenching.  There is an actual physical pain in my heart when I think about it.  There is no greater joy than to carry a child inside of you and I so want that for my daughters.  I want to fix this, I want to make it go away and be better.  I’m supposed to be able to do this as a mother and I can’t.  I have two daughters that can’t conceive now and I wonder what I did during my pregnancy that caused this.  Anti-nausea drugs maybe?  There is tremendous guilt at times and yet I know that it wasn’t intentional.  I know that God is here with all of us and has wonderful plans for my girls, we just don’t know what they all are yet.

One of the blessings that has come from this experience is that I have become an adoptive grandparent. We got to meet our grandson several weeks before he was placed in our daughter’s home.  He was sweet but it felt like we were babysitting for a wonderful little boy.  During the two weeks that followed I remember feeling like I did when I was pregnant for my second child.  I thought at the time, “Will I be able to love another child as much as I do my firstborn?”  I wondered if I would be able to love an adopted child as much as my other grandchildren who were born from my son.  The second my daughter stepped into her home with my new grandson it was instant love.  I felt this tremendous overwhelming feeling of joy and thankfulness that we had this new precious baby!  It didn’t matter where this baby came from, he was ours.  I continue to feel this way every time I see him and I am in awe that I can be a part of his life.  Thank you God.

I still wish that God would give my daughters a child to carry, but most of all I wish a peace and a contentment in their lives.  If they are never able to carry another child I pray that God will give both of my girls a peace about it.  They are both trying to adopt (one for the first time, the other for a second) and it has been a long, long process.  Why God?  Because our babies  haven’t been born yet. I am impatient but, “My soul waits on the Lord.”