Suffering

Advice from a Criminal

Have you ever noticed that the criminal hanging on the cross next to Jesus doesn’t ask the Savior of the world to save him from the torture of the cross? He doesn’t ask Jesus to reduce his suffering. He doesn’t beg the Lord to relieve his own pain or to rescue him from the death that is before him.

He simply asks Jesus to remember him when He comes into His kingdom.

“We are receiving the due reward of our deeds,” the criminal says to the other crucified criminal who mocks Jesus, “but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then, he turns to Jesus in faith and says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:27-43)

Pastor Schuermann explains it this way in a recent sermon:

As the thief on the next cross – himself seemingly hopeless – turns to Christ, hope makes a request: “Remember me. Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” There is hope.

This is how hope speaks. He asks for nothing but to be remembered by Jesus. He doesn’t ask to be saved from the cross, to be spared his suffering, to be granted a last-minute pardon, as the other [criminal] did. When death is unavoidable, hope embraces death and prays, “Jesus, remember me.” He who dies with these words on his lips, dies well.

We, the barren, have the same hope. We can embrace the cross of suffering and pray along with the criminal, “Jesus, remember me.”

And the good news is that He does.

And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Faith ‘n’ Family

Thank you to KFUO and Andy Bates for talking with me on the “Faith ‘n’ Family” program about barrenness as it relates to the Second Commandment.

You can listen to the program here.

Something That Is Better

Bo Giertz writes that when it comes to prayer, Jesus said “we should be persistent and not give up. We should compare ourselves with the man who, in the middle of the night needed to borrow some bread, and knocked on his neighbor’s door. God isn’t like the neighbor. He doesn’t mind being inconvenienced, but it’s a part of His fatherly way of rearing and teaching His children that He allows us to wait. Maybe He does it just so we learn to pray by being forced to think about what we pray for and being compelled to repeat what we have said in an effort to examine the contents. We have to be sure that what we pray for really comes from the heart. Then, we have God’s promise that He opens the door for us and that He hears us. We might not get just what we prayed for, but it will always be a good gift and just what we need most. Jesus doesn’t say that God gives us what we hoped for, but that He gives the Holy Spirit to those who pray to Him. He gives us the Holy Spirit when we pray persistently and faithfully and come to God with all our needs. The Spirit influences us and transforms us. Sometimes we stop praying about something because we understand that it wasn’t God’s will. Sometimes we discover that we’ve already received something that is better. Sometimes, as we pray, we see a completely different way of looking at what worried us. Or maybe God helps us in some other way–but He always helps us.” (To Live with Christ, 347-8)

More Advent Waiting

Advent is a season in the church year that is easily dismissed. It’s a time of waiting. We, in the church, also use these days before Christmas to prepare our hearts for the arrival of the Christ-child. Our sinful hearts, minds, and bodies need to be turned from our sinfulness and turned to God for His grace and mercy.

I don’t know why children haven’t been borne to me. After years of marriage, I’m ready to bear a child. I’ve prepared myself mentally and physically. Still no baby. In my self-pity I gripe to God for not giving me what I want, specifically the gift of a baby. After years of waiting and no specific diagnosis, that gift may never come come from my womb. What a hard, sad truth to accept.

And so I continue to wait. The Church reminds me to repent and turn from my sinfulness. My ways are not God’s ways. The Church reminds me that I wait for Jesus. So – does that mean that Christ’s arrival will make my body fruitful? No. The fruit of Mary’s womb is Jesus, and He makes me whole. I’ll not be whole in the physical sense here on earth. Rather, Jesus makes me whole through His death and resurrection. My body will always be sinful, thus, my body will not be perfect. However, God uses His means of grace to unite me with Jesus. He alone is perfect.

Being barren, I may never be finished waiting for a child. That longing may never go away. However, I no longer have to wait for Jesus to come. He came 2000 years ago and redeemed me. I wait, instead, for His triumphant return to take me to Himself in heaven.

How and When to Give

Question Submitted: I can’t praise your book highly enough, but I’m not always sure about how/when to give it to people. Sometimes, people are not in a place where they’re ready to talk about barrenness, or they may feel that others giving them resources is intrusive. It’s such a sensitive topic. Do you have any suggestions for how/when to give a copy of He Remembers the Barren to others?

I know what you mean. He Remembers the Barren is not exactly the kind of gift you want to wrap up and put under the tree for your loved one. Who wants to open a package and find this inside instead of something from Bed, Bath, and Beyond? Or who wants to pull a book with this cover out of a stocking in front of family and friends? Let’s all say it together: awkward.

Yet, I still think He Remembers the Barren is a good gift worthy of giving, because it reminds all of us that God’s love and favor is not dependent on our becoming mothers but, instead, on Jesus becoming our sin on the cross so that He might give us His blessed righteousness. In Christ, we are freed from the burden of sin and the curse of death that comes with our wretched barrenness; in Christ, we are made worthy of God’s love and favor; in Christ, we have true hope whether we are mothers or not.

So, please consider giving your loved one a copy of He Remembers the Barren, but use some of your James Bond-esque stealth in the giving. Here are some suggested tactics (Q and M approved, of course):

Read the book yourself, so that you know what your loved one is going through and can better love her through her grief and suffering.
Give the book to your loved one’s parents, siblings, pastor, etc. for the same reasons.
Make sure your church library has a copy of the book on hand as well as your local public library.
Write a note to go with the book (i.e. “This book is not a label or a judgment. It is a great big hug from me to you. I read it, and it helped me know that God remembers me even when I suffer. I thought it might help you, too. I love you.”)
Give her the book in private and at a time when she does not need to be around people for awhile. You can mail it to her home, or you can hand it to her wrapped and tell her to wait until she is alone to open it.
If you two already have a history of openly discussing her barrenness, then give it to her in person when it is just the two of you. And tell her what she means to you.
Give her the book without any expectations on your own part, and saturate the giving in prayer.
Once you give it to her, don’t bring it up. Wait for her to talk about it or not talk about it.
Don’t be offended if she doesn’t read it for awhile. Depending on what phase of the grief cycle she is currently experiencing, she may want nothing to do with it at first. She might even be embarrassed or offended. Still, won’t it be nice that the book will be there for her when she is ready for it?

I have had people turn shades of green at the mere mention of my book. The thought of reading something about the very thing they loathe makes them sick to their stomachs, because their present grief is too poignant. Such is the way of suffering, so I don’t force the book on them. Still, I try to give it to them, because I think the book really does offer comfort and empathy and relief amidst the pain of suffering.

Thank you for caring enough for your loved one to do what is hard. She is blessed to have you in her life.

All Things

I was reading this post by Holly Scheer the other day, and the bare truth in the following lines struck me:

“There is the temptation when things are seemingly hopeless to feel like God has abandoned you. ‘Thy will be done’ is not soothing when you remember that God’s will is not always ours and see that unfolding in a disastrous way. But still His Word holds true in spite of all that your eyes, ears, reason, senses are telling you…

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

Not a cliche, but the Word of the Lord. Not meant to make everything alright in this life, but meant to be believed by faith. The same God who does these things (allows or sends) is the one who is Jesus.”

Thank you, Holly.

Feeling Alone

Question Submitted: My husband and I have been undergoing fertility treaments since February 2011. We married a little later in life as we both were in foreign missions, but we finally met while working on the same mission field. After trying to start a family for a year-and-a-half, we consulted a doctor. She realized that I wasn’t ovulating. After 6 months of treatment, she recommended a fertility specialist. We worked with him for a year, then recently moved to another city. We found a clinic specializing in fertlility treatments. This was our first month of treatment. Yesterday, we received the results of our pregnancy test – negative. I feel hollow and have lost hope. My husband is an amazing partner and is constantly leading us in God’s Word. I am asking for your prayers for strength to accept God’s will. I would love to talk to other women who have gone through this or are going through this.

Sister, you’ve got our prayers for strength to accept God’s will. In Jesus’ name+, amen.

And you are most definitely not alone. Know that the entire Church prays for you. Know that Christ sits at the right hand of God and intercedes on your behalf. Know that the Holy Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words whenever you are too burdened to form the words yourself.

And know that there is a community of women, like yourself, who are praying the same prayer for their own lives. They, too, grieve their negative pregnancy tests and desperately put their faith in God’s good will for them even in their childlessness. These women want to meet you and listen to you and cry with you and share with you their own stories. These women met last summer in St. Louis for The Great Getaway, and, God willing, we hope to do the same year after year.

Won’t you please join us? (We’ll be in touch soon with details about The Great Getaway 2014.)

In the meantime, is there a pastor in your local mission field to whom you can go and speak about your hopes and disappointments and grief? He is Christ’s man there for you, and he wants to help bear your pain. He wants to comfort you with the Words of eternal life, pray with you as you wait on the Lord, and put Christ’s own pain-bearing flesh on your tongue.

Singlehood

Question Submitted: How can I best love and support my sister who is barren currently because she is not/has never been married? She is going through a very difficult time right now and I know that she feels a lot of anger, frustration, depression, and a multitude of other difficult emotions. She has told me several times how aware she is that she is the only one in my family who is not married and doesn’t have children. I have tried to be sensitive of that, but I was wondering if there was anything else I can do to love and support her (besides lifting her up in prayer and listening to her).

I thought your sister might appreciate your question being answered by a fellow, single sister in Christ rather than by an old, married lady such as me, so I asked Adriane A. Dorr, managing editor of The Lutheran Witness and one of my favorite people in the whole world, to take the helm on this one. Ms. Dorr just wrote a book called Hello. My Name Is Single. It’ll be out spring of 2014. It includes interviews from single people—young adults to widows—and touches on all manner of topics from “Why You Should Never Date Guys with ‘J’ Names and Other Little Known Facts” to “Love > Sex” to “Awkward First Dates and Other Things Singles Could Definitely, Totally Do Without,” all with the purpose of helping single people realize that the Lord really does love them, that being single is not the end of the world, that you can pray fervently for a pious spouse even before you think you’re ready to get married, what it means to be a Christian man or woman, and that dating, marriage, and life in general require God’s grace and forgiveness and a little dash of humor on the side.

Two years ago, I sat in a stiff-backed hospital chair, watching my sister and her husband coo over their newborn daughter, who was still pink and a little wrinkly and definitely very sleepy. In a moment, I was jealous. I wanted a husband who loved me and a child to rock in my arms too, and while I knew of wives who struggled with barrenness, I consoled myself with the fact that I was suffering more, since they, at least, had husbands to love them while I had no one.

Yeesh.

Your sister might feel the same way. But instead of waiting for her to talk to you about her pain, ask her. She’ll likely tell you that she wants to be loved and cherished, that thoughts of fulfilling the pious vocations of wife and mother fill her head multiple times a day. She’ll probably tell you how hard it is to watch her friends get married and then have babies, and how it seems like, no matter which restaurant she goes to on the weekend, she runs into a bachelorette party or a toddler’s birthday, two of the most painful reminders of her alone-ness.

She wants to have a husband to come home to, a man to fix dinner for, a baby’s tiny Disney diapers to change, and a swaddled infant to rock to sleep at night. And while you can’t change how she feels, you can acknowledge that she feels something at all. You can tell her that it’s okay to long for those things that our Lord tells us are holy and good—spouses and children and families and life together. You can tell her that you’re sorry that she is hurting, that her pain is real and that she’s not crazy for feeling it. You can write a Sticky Note and slap it to her forehead that reads: “You may be lonely, but you are not alone.” You can tell her she has you and that she has her pastor, and that a loving sibling and a faithful pastor can be a fairly unstoppable duo.

You don’t have to fix her or give her advice. You simply have to agree that life—and all the suffering that comes with it—is difficult and that it is hard. That, some days, will be enough.

But you also point her again and again to Christ. You remind her that her value and her worth come from—not a husband or children—but from Christ on the cross. Tell her, in the midst of her sobbing and bitter words spoken in anger, that she is whole and perfect in Christ, broken no more. Pray with her, asking the Lord that His heart would be moved to grant your sister the desires of hers. And encourage her to go often to the Lord’s Supper, to private Confession and Absolution, to the place where Christ’s gives her Himself, the One who makes all things new.

Not talking about her pain doesn’t help. But neither does wallowing in it. Let her hurt. Let her cry. Let her throw a pan of brownies across a kitchen. (Not, you know, saying that I’ve done that or anything.) But remind her that the Lord’s plan for her is perfect and that it is best, despite how it feels, despite how it looks, despite how it seems. She may be barren, but she is whole in Christ. And that, even when she lays her head down on her pillow alone in bed at night, is the only thing that matters.

Best,

Adriane

Hymns to the Rescue!

Question Submitted: I’m slowly learning during the “dark moments” to quickly grab my hymnal and try to get out of my head. It’s way too easy to be seduced by my own self-pity or anxiety about the future. Are there particular hymns you always go for first that help?

Was it Luther who said we should throw darts, not feathers, at the devil?

In my struggle against principalities and powers, I don’t want to be armed with bubble-machine choruses which speak of God only in adjectives. I don’t want my bow loaded with candy-heart lyrics which laud my own love for Love Divine.

Nope, give me a hymn-sword to wield every time. Dress me in poetic armor dripping with Jesus’ name and the truth of His work for me on the cross. Send me into battle on a rhythmic steed quick to deliver the news of Christ’s blood shed for sinners such as me, and wave that four-part battle flag high in the sky to guide and comfort me through the fray.

My preferred artillery?

“God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It” (Lutheran Service Book 594)
“Through Jesus’ Blood and Merit” (LSB 746)
“Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me?” (LSB 756)
“Entrust Your Days and Burdens” (LSB 754)
“Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus” (LSB 685)
“What God Ordains Is Always Good” (LSB 760)
“My Song Is Love Unknown” (LSB 430)
“Jesus, Priceless Treasure” (LSB 743)
“If God Himself Be for Me” (LSB 724)
“My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” (LSB 575)
“If Thou but Trust in God to Guide Thee” (LSB 750)
“I am Jesus’ Little Lamb” (LSB 740)
“One Thing’s Needful” (LSB 536 – Thank you, Leah!)
“Of the Father’s Love Begotten” (LSB 384)
“Joy to the World” (LSB 387)

Happy target practice!

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You Are Not Alone

Some of you are miscarrying, right now.

Some of you are grieving the anniversary of the death of a precious child in your life.

Some of you are struggling with undiagnosed physical pain that is baffling your doctors.

Some of you are coping with your husband’s recent death.

Some of you are depressed and afraid of what tomorrow might (or might not) bring.

So many of you are suffering, right now, and have asked for our prayers. Well, you’ve got them. Pastor Schuermann wrote this prayer for all of us to pray together today.

Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
– Psalm 25:6-7

Let us pray…

O God, from before the foundation of the world You knew me, loved me, and showed me mercy. As I struggle, Lord, give me strength. Remind me daily of Your everlasting love for me. Remind me that I am Your child, adopted into Your heavenly family by grace, for the sake of Jesus. Do not let this cross which You have laid on me overwhelm me. Because You know all things, I will trust You. Lord, have mercy. Amen.