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.

Air Horn

Grief is an air horn blowing in my ear.

I can’t think, I can’t speak, I can’t act. All I can do is cover my ears and wait for the curséd blast of sound to stop.

Only then, when the overstimulation has ceased – when the blessed quiet has recovered my senses – can I even begin to listen to what you have to say.

So, in the deafening squall of grief, don’t speak. Just sit with me. Listen to the sickening racket. Join me in begging God for it to stop, and, if you dare, put yourself between me and that revolting wave to absorb some of the sound.

Then wait. With me. For God to restore the peace.

Then, I will know that you care.

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.

Married without Children

Question Submitted: I got married knowing that we biologically could never have children, so I have a question for you…what is a good way to respond to all the questions?

I sometimes feel that people assume I’m a bad person/woman because I’m not having children, and people say, “Well, you SHOULD have kids!” Or the ever-present, “One day it’ll happen, and THEN you’ll understand” when people talk to me about their children. Do I respond with, “Well, actually, I won’t ever understand” or do I just let them believe that they’re right?

I had so many friends tell me that I should have reconsidered my marriage because we knew we couldn’t have children, and then I see their Facebook pages covered in photos, news, quotes, etc. of their kids, and it just renews my sense of not being “enough.” This is a tough road to travel!! I love my marriage and I love my husband, but I hate the way others interpret our being without children. Do you have any words of wisdom for me?

I think the best way to respond to all of the unsolicited suggestions and questions is to answer in whatever way best protects your husband and your one-flesh union. It’s a hard balance to strike in conversations, being honest and forthright about barrenness without over sharing. I imagine one of the risks of engaging people in a conversation at all about your specific situation is the very real chance they’ll end up asking more questions than you’re comfortable answering.

So, I recommend you start by having a frank conversation with your husband about the whole situation and decide together what you both are comfortable telling people and what you both wish to remain private. Then, let those boundaries be your guide in every conversation.

Remember, you have no social obligation to answer others’ questions about your sexual organs, nor do you need to defend your childlessness to your neighbor. Really, neither are anyone’s business but your own, your husband’s, and your pastor’s. (Yep, I include your pastor, because he is the one who married you or, at least, looks after your marriage.)

At the same time, it is perfectly acceptable if you want to share with others the reality of your barrenness. For some barren couples, this provides greater relief than silence down the road. Just be ready. Whatever boundaries you and your husband choose for these kinds of conversations, you most likely will spend a good chunk of your married life kindly helping family, friends, and strangers respect those boundaries. And for that task, my sister, may our Lord strengthen and preserve you in the one, true Faith unto life everlasting. Go to church often to hear God’s Word and to receive the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood for your benefit. Forgive freely for you have been forgiven in Christ.

If it’s helpful, whenever people push past my own personal conversation boundaries regarding my barrenness, I look them in the eye and tell them the truth: “I am not comfortable answering that question.” End of conversation.

On the rare occasion that a person probes even further, I excuse myself and flee temptation. (Actually, that’s not true. That is what I should do. More often than not – wretched sinner that I am! – I stick to the spot and offer tit for tat: “I’ll tell you something about my ovaries if you tell me something about your cervix. Or your uterus. Really, either are fine. I find both of them interesting.”)

It is awkward sometimes, but, I assure you, the awkwardness is not of your own making.

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

How Should I Grieve?

Question Submitted: Thank you for your blog. I usually read several entries at once every few months when my barrenness comes to the forefront again. Thank you especially for the Bible verses, prayers, and hymns. Recently I’ve seen a lot of miscarriage awareness Facebook posts. I’ve never gone through a miscarriage and its grief. My husband and I are just infertile. I’m pretty sure it’s ok for us to grieve, but obviously not with the same grief of those who lose a child. So how should/can an infertile couple grieve?

I asked my friend Diane Lamberson, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Texas who does psychotherapy from a Christian perspective with people struggling with complicated grief and loss, to help us with this post. Not only is Diane one of the wisest and most compassionate sisters in Christ I have ever met, but she has the education to properly address this question for all of us:

As a psychotherapist who specializes in grief and loss, I am often asked this question in one form or another. Actually, it is two questions:

1. Is the grief I feel legitimate?
2. Am I grieving correctly?

The simple answer to both questions is YES.

Bearing the cross of infertility, even in the comforting shadow of Christ’s cross, is a difficult road that is full of uncertainty, frustration, and most certainly grief. Is it the same grief a couple who experiences a miscarriage has? No. Does that make the grief of not conceiving (and possibly never conceiving) any less intense or legitimate? No. One is not less than the other. Instead, they are different, yet overlapping, experiences.

In fact, one parent feels her grief after six miscarriages and one full-term birth of a child (after the third miscarriage) is less painful than the grief suffered by those who have never conceived. “I am aware that the pain of other women who never carry a child must be greater than mine,” she writes. She calls miscarriage the “loneliest grief of all.” I think barrenness and miscarriage are both lonely kinds of grief, and I am grateful to the hosts of this forum for giving it a voice and providing a much needed source of Christ-centered comfort to all who are grieving as they carry this cross and follow Christ.

While having experienced neither infertility nor miscarriage personally, I have been called upon in both my clinical work and personal life to bear witness to and assist with the grief that comes with both. For the couple who has never conceived a child, news from a medical professional that it will not be possible can feel as if a person has died because their dream of a person has died. Indeed, in some ways, this news is a more complicated kind of grief. When we lose people we love to death, we have memories of our interactions and can share them with others. Society acknowledges it. There is a specific date of death and mourning (a public expression of grief).

When grieving the loss of a person for which we hope and dream but who does not yet exist, there are no memories in which to share or take comfort. There may not be a specific date when the dream died, only ongoing uncertainty. Society doesn’t acknowledge it in any public or formal way. There is no funeral. There are no flowers or casseroles in the refrigerator. There is no gravesite to visit. Many who suffer miscarriages don’t have all of these outward signs either, depending on when the pregnancy ended. Instead, what couples bearing the cross of barrenness largely get instead of compassion is suggestions about IVF, surrogacy, sperm banks, adoption, or other ways to “fix the problem” that don’t in any way acknowledge the very real grief and loss that the barren are feeling.

Some feel they are grieving too much and others worry they don’t feel enough and wonder what is wrong. The truth is neither is wrong. It just happens to be your feelings about what you’ve been through. They are colored by your personality, how you view being barren, and your faith/theology, among many other factors. Your grief may be more intense at one time than another. Many think grief is a linear process when it is more like a spiral lying on its side. While you may be moving forward, there are many emotions you may revisit along the way. This is not a sign of regression but a revisiting of feelings that have come around again in your movement through the spiral.

The truth is, God is present to comfort us through all our times of grief, whether it is the loss of a specific child, the loss of one’s womb/reproductive organs, or the loss felt every time an unwanted menstrual cycle comes along with the knowledge that once again a child is not growing within the womb. All are painful and difficult to endure, but in Christ we are never alone. With the support we provide each other God works through us. We may not know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future.

Diane Lamberson, LCSW

Marriage: One Mom, One Dad

“I like it,” I said to my husband yesterday at the Defend Marriage Lobby Day at the Illinois state capitol building. I was referring to the yellow button we had each been handed at the registration table.

“Yes,” he agreed as he pinned his on his jacket. “It’s a clearer confession of what marriage is, rather than just ‘one woman, one man.'”

Still, I found myself fighting back tears as we stood in line waiting to talk to our state representative. Here we were, a barren couple, wearing buttons which publicly exposed our shame. My husband and I are one man and one woman brought together in marriage, but we are not one dad and one mom; and the truth stings.

But, it is still the truth.

That’s what marriage is, really. It’s God’s good ordering of His creation. It’s not passion and attraction and preference and romance, though – don’t get me wrong – it is a delight when marriage includes such things. Marriage is God’s blessed institution of the family unit in life. It is one man and one woman joined together that they might be one dad and one mom. We know this to be true, because it is the one flesh union of husband and wife over which God spoke the blessing of children in His words “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:26-31); it is the distinct parental unit of dad and mom which God commands children to obey in His words “Honor thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12). It is the unique joining together of husband and wife which Paul uses as a picture of Christ’s relationship with His bride, the Church, when he writes, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:22–6:4).

That’s why even the barren can confidently confess to the world that marriage is one dad, one mom. Though the cross of childlessness weighs our shoulders with grief and pain (and sometimes, on days like yesterday, shame), it does not make our marriages null and void. We are still fruitful in marriage as man and wife, even though God in His wisdom has not blessed us insofar as to multiply. Soli deo gloria.

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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Adoption in Place of Conception?

Question Submitted: I know quite a few couples who are choosing to stop having children naturally, even though they are capable, in order to adopt. Is this a common phenomenon in American Christianity? The rationale seems to be:

1) They don’t want to go through another pregnancy, babyhood, potty training (so they will look to adopt an older child). I find this reason uncomfortably close to why I look to “adopt” older dogs, and not 6-week-old puppies.

2) They think adopting a child who otherwise would not be raised in the faith and may live in poverty or suffering is better than having another baby of their own. My husband calls this Malthusianism Lite.

Please understand my friends are clear that there are no obstacles to having another baby naturally (barrenness, physical danger to mom, etc.). How do I respond to these statements? If it didn’t happen so often, I would ignore it, but I have heard different women speak this way 4-5 times over the last year.

I recently heard a similar sentiment spoken about a character on a popular television show, and the character was lauded for thinking such things. I guess it doesn’t surprise me that the world thinks conception and adoption are mutually exclusive, but when did we in the Church buy into such fallacies?*

Conception is good in marriage. Adoption is good in marriage. Both are ways God gifts marriages with children, and we need not attempt to control either one. In fact, to sacrifice one for the other, to treat one as better or more important or more practical or more beneficial than the other, is problematic, and, for this reason, I would advise these couples to go talk with their pastor about such things in light of their specific vocations.

* I am not speaking about the specific circumstance of when a couple is blessed with a pregnancy during the adoption process and, because agency/government rules dictate such matters, must forgo an adoption at that time. That matter is separate from the question submitted and, therefore, is not addressed in this post.

Those Rose-Colored Glasses

Some people think that adoption is THE answer to barrenness. If you would just adopt, then your life would be so much happier. If you adopt, then you won’t have to wonder if and when you’ll ever start a family. If we adopt a baby, then we’ll fit in with our friends. If we adopt, then our parents will quit hounding us about giving them grandkids. You start to believe that adoption is really the way to go!

Please don’t misunderstand me. Adoption is definitely wonderful. Two of my children joined my family through adoption, and we are blessed a thousand times over by their presence. Consider this, though. Adoption is not going to bring the perfect child to you. There is no such thing as the perfect family. Kids sin. They’re naughty. Parents lose their temper. They don’t always like to make sacrifices for their children. Life won’t always be rosy.

If you’re considering adoption, good for you. I would, however, encourage you to remove the rose-colored glasses. Know that you’re making an important decision. If you’re trying to take the reins and build the “dream” family, then you need to have your eyes examined. You’ve turned inward on yourself rather than on the smallest of neighbors. More importantly, you need to check your heart, for a child needs your love for who she is, and not for whom you have always dreamed her to be. We can love children because they are God’s gifts to us — whether they are homegrown or added through adoption.

What if adoption isn’t in your sights? God still loves you. There is no mandate that requires barren couples to adopt. We are free to live under the cross of Christ and bask in His good gifts. Whether children are given to your marriage or not, God still delights in you! He sees you through Jesus, His perfect Son! You, the baptized child of God, are perfect to Him, with or without children.

Does God like the idea of adoption? Absolutely! He has adopted His children into His family. The apostle Paul wrote about adoption in the letter to the Galatians.

Galatians 4:4-6
English Standard Version (ESV)

⁴But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵to redeem
those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. ⁶And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

God’s desire is for you to be part of His family. Yes, even with all of your imperfections. He knows exactly what He is doing when He brings us into His family through baptism. Thanks be to God that He looks at us through His Son Jesus Christ.

He Remembers the Barren

God remembers you in Jesus