Putting God First Through Infertility (& other tough circumstances)
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
When Nick and I first discovered as a couple that we both had the diagnosis of unexplained infertility, it was a curve ball to say the least. We didn’t know the road that was ahead of us.
I had grown up somehow believing that falling pregnant was the easy part. I didn’t know it would take over three years of trying, multiple fertility treatments and eventually IVF (Invitro Fertilization) to finally get pregnant. I didn’t know I’d lose that first baby boy to stillbirth at thirty-three weeks, or that we would go on to have a rainbow baby boy, but then struggle again, attempt after attempt, to be blessed with our only daughter.
All I knew through the process was that God was good, no matter my circumstances, and that I could trust him with my heart; with laying down my expectations and laying down my hopes and desires. I could trust him with the next step forward.
Matt Redmond wrote a song called, “Blessed Be Your Name.”
“Blessed Be Your Name,
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name.
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name.”
I would worship, tears and snot, on my knees, leaning on the truth that God hears my prayers. And I would praise him through infertility, stillbirth and sorrow.
I started reading Ann Voskamp during those infertility years, One Thousand Gifts, and I took the challenge to keep finding the gifts that God had laid out specifically for me, to woo me to Him when I didn’t understand the path he was leading me on. Praising Him none the less.
In John Eldridge’s book, Get Your Life Back, he writes, “Beauty reassures. This is especially important to our search here for the grace beauty offers our life with God. We need reassuring. Beauty reassures us that goodness is still real in the world, more real than harm or scarcity or evil. Beauty reassures us of abundance, especially that God is absolutely abundant in goodness and in life. Beauty reassures us there is plenty of life to be had. I believe beauty reassures us that the end of this Story is wonderful.”
He continues to write that God whispers to our heart in secret love-letters through moments our heart delights in. My love letter became the butterfly. When I was a teenager, I got a butterfly tattoo on my back. For some reason, butterflies delight my heart and make it leap.
When I walked up to the hospital and through those large sliding doors to get treatment, a pink paper butterfly caught my eye, and I was compelled to pick it up. I still have it today. It was my sign of hope. My promise to find God on the paths I do not understand. He leads me beside quiet waters, but he also walks me through the shadow of death.
When we lost Samuel, the hospital placed a butterfly on the front of my door to let people know a baby had passed before they entered. When I saw that butterfly, all I saw was God bringing me comfort in such a tragic time.
John Elderidge writes about feeling closer to God when we have moments in our day connecting with parts of nature. During the Covid season in Australia, we were confined to certain distances in our suburbs. My permitted distance enabled me the delight of walking along the Nepean River in Penrith, Sydney. I’d leave while it was still dark to watch the sunrise. Some of those moments in nature with the trees and the water and the sky were the most intimate times with God. I’d feel a word or a phase and just meditate on it. I would pour out my heart. I would listen to worship music as I walked or chatted with a friend.
These walks were so treasured, and I feel my heart yearn for them. It’s clear to me that yes, God both wants to bless us and delight us, and romance us. He is also our companion and comfort during hard seasons and sorrow. We don’t always understand his ways, but he only asks us to direct our hearts to him. To find him in the chaos and beauty, that he may keep walking with us along the path.