It's National Infertility Awareness week. Welcome to several new readers of Preacher on the Plaza! And I’m happy to use this blog over the next couple of days to give others a platform to share their stories of grief, loss and deferred longing. Even if “infertility” is not your thing and you read my blog for other reasons, I ask you stick with me. Did you read Sarah's and Ronda's stories earlier in the week? Like them, chances are you know someone going through infertility or who has infertility in their story just as I wrote about in Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility.
Today, I'm glad to introduce you to my friend, Lara. Though you might see her happy family photo at the bottom of this post, there's so much more to her story. So much imagining, re-imagining and tears that went into building her family as it is today. I was reminded as I read her words that we truly never know what someone is going through (or has been through). I admire her perseverance.
My below the belt troubles started when I was a teen and by 20 I was flatly told that I would never have children.
It is hard, when you are still a child yourself, to really know what infertility means in practical terms but looking back I cannot recall ever feeling “incomplete.”
Yet, I had a niece and nephews that I adored and a good life, full of travel and access to experiences that many people never get to enjoy. I felt strong, secure, and confident with my empty belly. I filled my house with expensive, light-colored furniture and fragile works of art. I bought sexy and impractical shoes. I researched graduate programs, planned exotic vacations and genuinely enjoyed my life. I was the Anti-Mommy.
And then, on a blind date in 2002, I met my husband, Jon. A man born to be a father.
He was a youth mentor, coach, and all around kid-whisperer. All children loved him and it was mutual.
I never hid my issues and told him on our second date, before he even knew my middle name, that I was incapable of carrying a child. When he proposed, I was thrilled to say, “Yes!”, but also unambiguously stated, “All you get is me. But, I’m all yours. Forever.” He said he was okay with this bargain and I believed him.
From where I stood, this was a really good deal. A few weeks after the honeymoon, the comments started. “Don’t wait too long, aren’t you thirty?” People were well-intentioned but relentless. I started to feel less like a prize and more like a burden.
So I decided, maybe we should at least try.
I started with the gateway fertility drugs as well as yoga, meditation and, herbs. And I prayed. Fervently, earnestly, and often while on the toilet holding a pregnancy test pee stick. After almost a year, I found a specialist.
Our baby chase didn’t always work out so well. There were losses, and failures that hurt like losses. I tried to get and stay pregnant for almost eight years.
I succeeded at least five times, possibly more depending on what you mean by “pregnant.”
If you think you can’t be “a little pregnant” than you have a lot to learn about chemical pregnancies, blighted ovum, and other such novelties.
I tried everything from we will just “not think about it” which is much harder than you’d think, to medications by injection, and procedures that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Physically, the process of miscarriage was the same as early labor, only without the joyous payoff. No baby to cradle, just more cramping.
My husband and I took the losses very differently, at least in the outward sense.
I’m sure he was as heartbroken as I was. I cried often, unable to let go of the deep throb of heartache that replaced the baby’s heartbeat. Each time as I physically recovered, I felt like I had lost my mind and my baby. My confidence, my sense of purpose and my ability to mother the child I did have all suffered. But I kept going.
When I look back and ask myself the hard questions, I know I did it because I am stubborn but also because I wanted to make people happy, especially Jon.
On one of my visits I went through the normal drill, I put the cup on the ledge in bathroom and waited in the drafty examination room. I remember shivering with my legs folded under me trying to keep warm and hoping that the nurse would come soon. The walls were so thin that I could clearly hear a doctor giving instructions to patient in the next room. “Scoot your bottom all the way down. Good. Good. Now let your legs fall open. Great. Now stay right there. You will feel a tiny pinch.” Frustrated and in a disintegrating paper robe, I wished could just put my clothes back on and leave. There was something especially humiliating to me about laying naked on a table, scooting, opening, and yet falling short. But in the balancing of my options, nothing was more humiliating than spending another year having to answer the question, “Why don’t you have any children?”
“It’s positive.” I heard the nurse say to someone in the hall.
Unexpected fear like a lead weight landed on my shoulders. I knew she was talking about me. My hands covered my face as the door opened and the doctor and the nurse walked in. “Surprise, you are pregnant!” she says. I forced a smile but inside I screamed, “No!”
I imagine God hearing me, scratching His head and saying, “That ungrateful so and so. She begs you to give her a child, and then she’s upset when you do it.”
I was also afraid. I was considered high risk and lived every moment until the baby was born wondering if that day was my last 
day as a mom. While pregnant, I did even more fervent toilet praying with every twinge, cramp or pink spot. But we made it and I gave birth to my first child in 2005. I now am a mother of two.
If I could go back in time, I would tell my heart-sick self to ignore the lie of shame and acknowledge that there are few better ways to guarantee an unhappy life than rejecting contentment, living like someone owes you something. God doesn't. In fact I owe Him more than I will ever be able to repay just for waking me up in my (mostly) right mind today. It has not been easy, but today I honor my losses and rejoice in the knowledge that I have been given exactly the full and beautiful life God intended for me to live.
I’ve come to embrace my children, as well as our infertility journey, as a gift.
This bumpy road is a testament to free and unmerited favor. My children, the living and the lost, are reflections of God's grace and their presence reminds me that their lives, like my own, belong to Him.
Lara is a technology law practitioner and aspiring retiree. She lives in the DC Metro area with her husband and two children who share her love of baking, naps, and old school cartoons.
*SHARE this blog on Facebook or Twitter this week and be entered to win a free copy of Birthed! Tag me on Facebook or Twitter when you post.
Friends, it’s National Infertility Awareness week. Welcome to several new readers of Preacher on the Plaza! And I’m happy to use this blog over the next couple of days to give others a platform to share their stories of grief, loss and deferred longing. Even if “infertility” is not your thing and you read my blog for other reasons, I ask you stick with me for the next couple days. Hear these stories. Chances are you know someone going through infertility or who has infertility in their story just as I wrote about in Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility.
Today I'm glad to welcome my friend and former seminary classmate, Ronda to the blog. She's a new mom (congrats, Ronda and Stacy!) but has a powerful story to tell about how "having a baby" is really not the end to infertility (Sigh).
This past Sunday I brought my two-week old son to church for the first time. I wanted him to feel the love of this community that has prayed for him since before he was conceived. As the chords of the familiar opening hymn, “Worthy of Worship” began I found myself once again singing this hymn with tears streaming down my face, something that had become all too familiar over the past three and a half years. The words of this hymn have affected me deeply. On this morning I sang with gratitude for the journey and with a realization that I had not reached the end as I’d expected.
Worthy of worship, worthy of praise,
Worthy of honour and glory;
Worthy of all the glad songs we sing,
Worthy of all the offerings we bring.
You are worthy, Father, Creator.
You are worthy, Saviour, Sustainer.
You are worthy, worthy and wonderful;
Worthy of worship and praise.
When I first learned I was pregnant I was ecstatic.
My husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for ten months and we were elated to see a positive pregnancy test. Immediately we began dreaming of what this life growing inside of me would be. However, two weeks later the bleeding began, signifying that the tiny life that we wanted so much was no more. Unfortunately this was a scenario we would experience twice more over the next couple of years. It would take months or a year to get pregnant only for that pregnancy to quickly come to an end. It came to the point where we would pray for a positive pregnancy test and dread it at the same time.
Throughout these painful losses I would go to church and sing “Worthy of Worship” with tears streaming down my face, barely able to make out the words, wondering where God was.
Eventually we began to see a fertility specialist. Maybe we would finally learn why it took so long for me to get pregnant and why I lost each pregnancy. What followed were months of invasive tests, oral medicines, injected medicines, and intrauterine inseminations. Each month brought new emotions, a mix of hope and dread. All of this was taxing on my body and spirit, and it was hard on my marriage. Last summer I wrote to a friend “I’m sitting here in my dining room about to inject myself with another round of fertility drugs, which affect me body and spirit, and I wonder if it’s worth it, if I should just give up.” And yet I would sit in church, singing “Worthy of Worship” with tears streaming down my face feeling lonely and forgotten.
A little over two weeks later, I once again saw two pink lines. Yet, I couldn’t be excited; I wouldn’t let myself be excited.
At the first appointment, where we saw the tiniest speck on the ultrasound, the doctor said that we needed to continue to wait before being optimistic. Then, a few weeks later we heard a heartbeat for the first time. As each week progressed I finally allowed myself to relax a little, to begin to plan. Although I was still waiting for bad news, for the doctor to tell me that things weren’t going well and that I would once again lose the life growing inside of me. I held my breath throughout the entire pregnancy only exhaling fully when my son was placed in my arms for the first time. Two Sundays later I sang “Worthy of Worship” with tears streaming down my face overwhelmed with feelings.
I thought that holding my child would bring the journey of infertility and pregnancy loss to an end. But I’m beginning to realize that this isn’t the end of the journey, or at least it’s not the end I envisioned.
I find that I still mourn the three lives I never got to meet. At the same time I am reminded not to take the life I hold in my arms today for granted. Somehow the journey has given me a different perspective, one which makes me profoundly grateful for every moment (even the sleepless ones), and one which is so deep that I still don’t have words. What I know is that I have been forever changed by my journey of infertility and pregnancy loss. I discovered a community which deeply understood what I was, and am going through. It is this community which is now helping me to see that while the journey hasn’t ended in the way I thought, there is something new coming forth. So I’ll keep singing “Worthy of Worship” with tears streaming down my face in recognition of the journey that isn’t over yet.
[You can listen to this song if you are unfamiliar with it here]
Ronda Gentry is ordained in the Baptist tradition and currently serves as the Director of the Center for Civic Advancement at Tusculum College in Tennessee. She and her husband Stacy welcomed son Owen to the world a few weeks ago. When Ronda isn’t dreaming of sleep, she enjoys exploring her world through travel and reading.
*SHARE this blog on Facebook or Twitter this week and be entered to win a free copy of Birthed! Tag me on Facebook or Twitter when you post.
Friends, it's National Infertility Awareness week. Welcome to several new readers of Preacher on the Plaza! And I'm happy to use this blog over the next couple of days to give others a platform to share their stories of grief, loss and deferred longing. Even if "infertility" is not your thing and you read my blog for other reasons, I ask you stick with me for the next couple days. Hear these stories. Chances are you know someone going through infertility or who has infertility in their story just as I wrote about in Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility.
Today, I'm so glad to welcome the brave voice of Sarah, a fellow clergy to this blog to share her story. She offers some wise counsel for all of us as we move toward Mother's Day in a few short weeks.
It's no coincidence that National Infertility Awareness Week arrives just prior to Mother's Day, my new hardest holiday. And it's not because I don't love my mother. I love her, a lot (and she knows it). It's because of how we celebrate the day.
Here is what we do on Mother’s Day. We celebrate people who have entered into the Motherhood Club. This is a club that crosses many boundaries: race, religion, age (to an extent), geography, economics, etc. Mothers come from everywhere. And whether or not they planned to join the club, they are bound to all who have done the same. Mothers get respect. And they should.
Here is what else we do on Mother's Day. We sometimes take a moment to remember those who have lost their mothers. Whether in a congregation or at nice restaurant for brunch, we see women with white flowers pinned to their lapels, making tangible their losses. They are motherless children. Anna Jarvis, who founded Mother's Day in 1908, did so to memorialize her own mother, and the invaluable gifts she received from her.
So let's talk about what we don't do on Mother's Day. We don't talk about those of us who wish we were mothers. We don't talk about the trials and tribulations on the path to motherhood. We don't talk about those of us who have never seen two pink lines on a pregnancy test or those of us who have miscarried or had stillborn children. We fail to mention those of us who have injected our bodies, taken pills, and been poked and prodded reaching, with all the hope we can muster, toward the title of Mom.
We fail to name the childless mothers, those of us who have been denied entry to this club. Some us of believed that entry was so easy that we purposely delayed our membership, and considered ourselves wise for it. And there are some who did not delay and yet also remain outside the club. And many of us will pass this May 14th in grief. The newest stats say one in every eight couples, and my husband and I are one.
This Mother's Day I was hopeful that I would be sharing with my mother and mother-in-law (and other family) the news that I would be joining their club at long last. It would work this time. I was so hopeful. But another month of medications and tests and interventions has gone by and we have nothing to show for it. It has been nearly three years since my husband and I set out on this journey. And we remain painfully childless.
This is not an easy place to be on Mother's Day or any day. It's not an easy place to be when I have more than five friends joining the motherhood club in 2017. It's not an easy place to be when everyone I meet seems to ask me if I have children, or better yet, if I have started a family yet. Yes, I have started a family, in fact, six years ago this month. We said "I do" on a rainy April day with plenty of people telling us that rain on my wedding was a good fertility omen. That part wasn't true, but our love has been.
So during this week of infertility awareness, I do not want to complain about family language or rant about Mother's Day (okay, maybe a little). But what I desperately want is for infertility to be talked about, so that it gets out of the dark shame closet and into the bright daylight. That's why I am now writing about it out in the wide open interwebs.
For my fellow fertility warriors, I am blessed to know you and could not walk this path without you. For my pregnant friends, thank you for acknowledging my pain and not talking about your bellies too much. I am honestly happy for you and wish we were doing this together. For those who have not had trouble getting pregnant, please see me and my pain without offering suggestions to fix it (yes, I know about adoption). Real listening is the best gift you can offer me.
We all carry hidden grief over losses that may never come to light. Right now, this is mine. And by reading, you are helping me carry it. Thank you.
Sarah is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and works as a healthcare chaplain. She lives in Maine with her husband, Adam. When she's not at work, Sarah enjoys singing (often with her ukulele), baking, and watching baseball. She graduated from Andover Newton Theological School and The George Washington University.
*SHARE this blog on Facebook or Twitter this week and be entered to win a free copy of Birthed! Tag me on Facebook or Twitter when you post.
We can easily spend our days living in labels. There are the labels others give us.
Overweight. Social Butterfly. Photogenic.
Labels we place on ourselves.
Determined. Hard working. A Failure.
Labels that have everything to do with what we believe about our worthlessness.
C student. Second string. Not partner material.
Meet someone new at a party and you'll be asked (especially if you live in my area) is "What do you do?" And what follows is an exchange of labels.
I'm a doctor. . .
I'm a runner . . .
I'm a stay at home dad . ..
Or whatever the case may be.
I've often walked away from conversations like this either feeling very accomplished or defeated depending on who is standing on the other side. I realize such emotions have everything to do with my love of labels. Being known as a particular kind of person who does particular kind of things-- it all goes back to labels.
In my book Birthed, I write about my struggle with the label mother. After years and years of open-minded efforts, I could not get what I wanted. It tortured me EVERY DAY. In the grocery store line, the dry cleaners, or a small group meeting when asked about my children I'd always say:
"No, I'm not a mother."
It felt so unfair after all that I was putting my body through to reach my goal. . . . What did I do to make God so mad at me?
But as I dealt with the pain and wise teachers showed up to lead me to greener pastures, I began taking on this loaded label. I was a mother. I was not excluded. God did not hate me. The only difference between me and the moms clubs: I was not on a non-traditional path.
For, who says that motherhood has to look a certain way?
Who says that the "real" mothers are only those who regularly change diapers or pack school lunches or sign school permission slips?
Who says that you can't nurture hearts and have a full home of family without birth certificates to go along with it?
Motherhood, in my case, just had to be re-packaged.
Now, when people hear that we have a child with our legal last name, most say: “You must be so happy! You’re finally a parent.” But I cringe. For this not how I feel about my journey of parenthood at all.
While I love our daughter and am so glad she's a part of our home, I became a mother long before her birth.
I was a mother to those who embryos that lived in me but did not make it to full-term.
I am a mother to those who find themselves in my congregations or friendship circles— adults and children a like.
And I mother those who I've met in orphanages around the world especially as our family journey intersected with the organization Feed the Children (while my husband was the CEO). Now, it’s a work I continue through the foundation, Our Courageous Kids and the unofficially adopted children that are a part of our lives. (And I hope more to come!).
So when my daughter came I knew she was not "an answer" but the addition to a full life. It's how we parent her now, looking forward to introducing her to many siblings from all over the world.
My soul care word of the day is this: if there's a label you're longing to be used about you, take it on.
Who says you have to be a size 2 to be beautiful? Or a pro-golfer to be a champion? Or an a published author, songwriter or playwright to be creative?
Re-define your longings. Live them out. Be willing for them to take a path you might not have expected.
Who really needs to be normal after all? It's so boring.
My book, Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility has been out for over a month now. It's hard to believe that so many of you have had the opportunity to read the words that I labored over for so long!
Do you have your copy yet?
It's been fun to read what others are saying and thinking about the story as they've shared their reviews, comments and even selfies with the book. If you've been thinking of buying it (or reading it if it's on your nightstand), here's three reasons recent reviewers who think you'll love it.
" Birthed isn’t your typical book. Rather than coddling the reader with niceties and pretty theological bows on top of life’s complex sufferings, Elizabeth invites us into the layered and difficult details of her story of infertility. I once heard Nadia Bolz-Weber say that it’s the “jagged edges of our humanity” that allow us to see God in each other, and this is exactly what Elizabeth does through her writing."
"I sat down to read Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility convinced I would have nothing in common with author Elizabeth Hagan. After all, both my children were conceived after three stress-less months of trying, practically on schedule. . . God’s grace, on the other hand, is something I’m infinitely familiar with (even though I often forget about it in the middle of my temper tantrums). And the way He likes to wrap it up with big red bows and drop it off as a big surprise is something that’s happened to me more than once. And that’s what this book is actually about — it’s about those little love notes from God that can set our lives on a completely different path than the one we’d imagined, the one we’d planned for, the one — dare I say it — we idolized."
"Elizabeth is telling the truth. . . . It is more than an attitude or an aspiration. It’s not enough to tell each other to try harder in prayer or sheer will, but true hope is more than the promise of something good. It isn’t always a song that we sing but might be more clearly understood by our protests. It’s a testimony I need to hear this year and so I’m adding Birthed to my [list]."
Have they inspired you? Before midnight today-- January 26th, Chalice Press is offering 30% off if you order it from their site with the code Dream17.
As always, feel free to ask a question or leave a comment. I'm glad to keep chatting on or offline with you!
These feel like dark times, don't they?
I feel like the world in which I called to minister changed dramatically post 11/8.
No matter who you voted for President. No matter if you were happy with the results. No matter if you were deeply troubled. No matter what. The world felt different. The way we related to one felt harsher.
Going on Facebook felt like a battleground. Opening up twitter felt like war. Opening up your mouth at work about your feelings felt close to impossible.
"You voted for ___? Really? How could you?" has become a point of conversation among us. Sometimes we just don't want to know the answers.
I've heard how family members have stopped talking to family members.
I've wept over stories like this one as acts of bullying has increased.
I've talked with friends about how they are now deeply afraid for their internationally adopted children's citizenship status.
I've ached with some of our babysitters about how their family member worry they might be asked to leave the country soon or not have access to healthcare anymore.
I've heard from pastor friends all over the country who are now getting frequent calls about whether or not their congregation will be a safe space of refuge if situations call for it.
These are dark times for those of us who are so passionate about inclusion, multiculturalism, and uplifting the cause of the marginalized.
These are dark times for those of us who want harmony, peace, and good feelings throughout our land.
These are dark times for those of who plan to sit next week at Thanksgiving tables alongside folks who are hostile toward any viewpoint that isn't theirs.
So with this brand new day in America, how are we going to get through it?
This week, my book, Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility is launching over at Chalice Press.
When people ask me what's it's about, I say it's a story of how I got through a dark time in my own life.
I say it's a memoir of how I got from point A to point B when the worst case scenario happened to me in my dream of motherhood.
I say it's my offering to others walking in similar shoes of grief, pain and loss, infertile or not.
I learned so much from our long season of infertility. I believe I gained some wisdom that I could have gotten in no other season of life. At the very least, I gained some survival tips.
Here are three I'd like to share for those of you despairing today:
These suggestions might just be drops in the bucket. But somehow, someway you and I have to move from where we are to somewhere better.
Today marks my 9th wedding anniversary.
Eight of those years Kevin and I have struggled with infertility.
I'm in awe that our marriage survived, even more in awe that it's thriving today.
I say this because like my fellow infertile couples know all too well-- there's a harsh push and pull that comes with the inability to have kids when you want to have kids. And when a season of infertility keeps going and going without end, it can be one of those life events that can lead you to end it all.
For in infertility, there's the leaning toward, "Is it your fault or mine?" And layers of hurt that fester below the surface . . .
There's the question of "Will you still love me if I can't give you what you want?" And there's the renegotiating of your relationship as potentially a childless couple . . .
And there's the devastation of hearing a doctor say again, "You aren't pregnant again." And figuring out how to go on living with a drained bank account and a heart full of a lot less hope. . .
These marriage moments are like sharp daggers to even the most committed couples.
They were for us.
Though we started out with all the best of intentions on October 27, 2007 -- with promises made to one another and to God in front of all our family and friends and with shared faith to anchor us -- we still fell. We fell hard to the sentence of infertility.
(I'll spare you the raw details in this blog post. But if you want to read them, check out my memoir which is soon to be released, Birthed)
But we didn't break our vows because even on the darkest nights (really the darkest nights) we fought for each other. We surrounded ourselves with a community of people who taught us how to fight for each other.
And we never said, "If we get through this . . . " we always said, "When we get through this. . ."
I believe that no marriage is perfect. All marriages go through rocky patches where you might love each other, but you don't like being around each other. And all marriages experience huge speed bumps (like infertility was for us) that cause a re-evaluation of everything that you counted on as gospel.
But if you're willing to stick through it -- even when it's not easy, marriage can be such a gift to your life. It has been for Kevin and me.
I don't want to be one of those people who glosses over hard times with a fairy dusted paintbrush saying, "Oh, wasn't that wonderful? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
Because hear me say loud and clear -- infertility sucks!
But, I can tell you that like any difficult season, Kevin and I are a more deeply committed husband and wife because of infertility. We're more attuned parents to our daughter because of infertility. We've got a bigger vision of the children around the world that God wants us to parent because of infertility.
Infertility has given our marriage and home life something special that we could have gotten from no other experience.
I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you, Kevin Hagan. You are one amazing man. Cheers to nine years and more to come! I'm so glad to be your wife.
It's National Pregnancy/ Child Loss Month. And I have been invited to guest blog over at Project Pomegranate for the next several weeks about my experiences and writing #Birthed. Recently I offered this post that I'd like to also share with you today:
Since folks have heard that I wrote a memoir about my struggle with infertility, many ask: “How could you write something so painful, so personal?”
The answer I give is “How could I not?”
When my husband, Kevin and I were in the throes (and I really mean the throes) of our deepest pain of miscarriage and failed fertility treatments in 2009, I searched and searched for resources.
Not being the type of person who liked support groups and avid reader . . .
I looked for comfort in books because I could read books at home without having to go anywhere or talk to anyone about my infertility (and at my privacy was a key at that time). In the books I kept buying (and buying) from Amazon each week, I craved good, honest stories like:
I wanted someone to tell me what it felt like to visit the doctor every single morning at 7:30 am.
I wanted someone to tell me what it felt like hear via email that one of your best friends is pregnant the 3rd time without really trying (sigh).
Or, to find that an IVF cycle didn’t work for the 4th time as savings accounts sat drained.
For, when these things happened to me, I crumbled and crumbled hard. Many weeks I didn’t get out of my pajamas for days and some nights I drank too much too. I felt shame for not being able to cope with the loss appropriately (as if not being able to carry a baby successfully was a failure enough!)
Yet most of the books I read at that time fell into one of two categories (in my opinion).
To my frustration, neither of these approaches seemed congruent with our experiences.
They left me feeling judged for my choices and often feeling more isolated. While sure, it was nice to find solidarity with those who had walked in similar shoes, I hated getting to the end of the book only feeling like there’d been little to no movement on the part of the author.
I wanted a deeper, more reflective memoir.
I wanted someone to tell me how they found God in the mess of so much loss and so much pain.
I wanted to know how I could move from the angry and obsessive cries of “must have baby now” to “there’s hope for me no matter what.” I wanted to know that God hadn’t forgotten me and was just as loved as my “with child” friends.
So, when I sat down to begin to tell our story in Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility (which will be released by Chalice Press on December 6th) . . .
I sought to create the memoir I was looking for but never found: a story of hope, a story of wrestling with God, and a story of moving toward healing even when our journey kept not turning out like we expected.
I can’t wait for you to read it and tell me what you think.
If you live in West Virginia, Oklahoma or North Carolina I am coming to you soon. Visit my schedule page to learn more.
Let me let you in on a secret. I may seem cool and calm in person. But, when I'm launching something new, I'm a nervous wreck on the inside. For there's nothing scarier than putting yourself out there, putting all your energy or weight behind something and hoping people show up, participate and gain from the experience what you hoped they would.
I believe such fear is a normal part of the world of church ministry.
Pastors are often the movers and shakers of the church, aren't they?
We are the ones who start new things. We are the ones who say to other church leaders: "Trust me. We just need to do this." We are the ones who often plan the sermon series that ruffles some feathers.
And so every Advent or Lent when I've offered a new book study or worship series . . .
Or, every summer that I've thrown out the normal worship practices in exchange for a Sabbatical of sorts . . .
Or every church council meeting, I've offered a new way of thinking about church leadership . . .
I've had a pit in my stomach. That pit that reflects back: "What if ___ is a terrible idea? What is no one shows up? What if I'm the only one who really cares about ____?"
Of course, I could listen to the fear and stop all plans. But, I'm a firm believer that we can't let fear control us, can we? So, with my brave face on, I've set out chairs. I've make flyers. I've invited people to a meeting.
And when all is said and done, usually I'm delightfully surprised.
All is usually well. Or at least I get through the experience (so I can cry about its failure alone at home).
Life is lived well when we put our ideas, our heart on the line, isn't it?
I'm soon offering the world something new, something I've been working on for a long time. Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility will soon be available for sale. And I have a PIT in my stomach about it too.
Though I know it's the best writing I could offer readers at the moment it went to print. . .
Though I know it was a writing project God called me to complete . . .
Though I know it has the potential to help readers who've walked through a similar season of pain find hope . .
I'm scared.
And there's part of me that wants to hide out and not come out till the book launch is over.
Because I want you to like it (and I know not everyone will).
Because I want to keep doing this kind of work: living stories, writing stories and sharing them with you (and the number of copies sold of Birthed will have a lot to say about whether or not I can easily keep doing this).
Because my heart is on every page (and it feels so vulnerable to offer the ENTIRE public my heart).
But, my prayer is MAY NOT MY FEAR HOLD ME BACK.
So in faith, I've spent the past weeks planning, organizing and dreaming about book launch events trusting that some of you might want to come. And hoping these events will help me get this book in the hands of those who need it the most.
For the truth is this: the only job I have is to trust the Spirit-- the Spirit who nudged me long ago to write this-- will help Birthed be what it needs to be. All will be well. It really will!
And would you like to read a preview? Head over to my publisher's website, Chalice Press and read what some earlier readers have to say about it and one chapter! Thanks, friends, for being along for the ride.
I spent 8 years wondering what it would feel like to be a mother of a particular child.
I thought of it every time I picked up drugs at the pharmacy for one of our IVF procedures.
I thought of every time I signed my name to a background check for our adoption paperwork.
I thought it every time I couldn't manage to avoid the kid clothes aisle at Target.
First of all, would it ever happen? And if it did, then . . . What would it be like?
What would I name him or her?
Would I look him or her in the eyes for the first time and magically fall in love? Or would bonding take much longer?
After the birth, would I work part-time or full-time or not at all?
Would motherhood morph me into Betty Crocker with spreadsheets for what we ate for dinner every night? Or would I be the mom who ordered groceries online and dragged my kid to restaurants too?
Would I function on little sleep, little free time, and little alone time with grace? Or would I become grump in chief?
8 years is a long time to wonder about questions like these. 8 years can go by so slowly.
In all my waiting, I know I made up lots of stories in my head. I began to believe that moms are somehow a different breed of people, people who are suddenly look nothing like the women they were before they welcomed children (and so this of course would happen to me and I wasn't sure how I felt about that). I began to look past my friends with kids only seeing them as people who had something that I didn't. I began to bulk all moms into a solitary category thinking there was only one path forward when the word "Mom" gets added to my name (if it did at all).
But now that I am here this place where I go to the pediatrician (like I did today) and the nurse says to me, "Mom, will you place your baby on the scale?" I'm both in shock that this is ME but also in awe that in some ways it's nothing like I ever could have imagined.
For as much work us planners can do in our heads about how something is to feel like when it happens, none of us ever really knows.
You could read and study the details and look at pictures about what Grand Canyon is like for years and years. But in the end it's all a misguided, isn't it, until you SEE it and EXPERIENCE it for yourself? The Grand Canyon is an majestic experience, not a thing of textbooks.
Such is true, I believe, of this waiting I've been doing for parenting.
It's nothing like I ever really imagined. It's both harder and more beautiful than there are really words for (but you know, though I'll try to find some in the future!). And there was no way to prepare for it than to just be present when the moment came and let my intuition and wise voices around me help me find the next steps. Parenting is a marathon, not a sprint. I've got much learning to do by living it.
Such is true, I think of anything we anticipate or look forward to in life.
Oh, what good energy you and I can waste on putting our mind so much in the future to the point that we can't be all there with the life we actually have NOW.
If I were to go back and tell myself anything-- that self that had to wait 8 years for this moment to come-- it would be to life to the fullest in what was (not what would be).
I would say, "Elizabeth: Live the pain. Find the joy. Cherish the gifts of this time. Trust God to see your desires to be as only God can. Because when you get to "that" moment you've been waiting for 8 years, you'll look back and truly say in the words of the spiritual Wouldn't Take Anything for My Journey Now."
All of this, of course, is easier said than done. Some of the hardest soul work any of us can tackle is being present in the moment, but when we do, I believe, joy is on the other side. For life becomes a gift. All of it-- even the LONG waits.
Don't give up hope.
If you've read my book, Birthed, I believe you gleamed from the pages that no matter how many times Kevin and I got beat down in our journey, we never gave up hope to be parents. Never.
There were times when we wanted to-- for the pain of our broken hearts was just too much to bear.
There were times when for our mental health it would have been easier if we let the dream die.
There were times when we had to re-imagine what parenthood looked like for us.
In this longing, sometimes Kevin held the hope banner for the two of us-- for I was just too exhausted. Other times, I held it for him when he was just so frustrated he didn't know what to do. So we kept going. The next step. The next step. And the next.
I've known my whole life I was meant to be a mother. And ever since I met Kevin, I knew he'd be the best father.
You say because something is hard then "It wasn't meant to be." You stop trying to proactively live your dreams when the cost is great. You blame God for not giving you what you think you deserve. And you stop living.
All of this is normal because life can be oh, so brutal, my friends. It can kick us down in the deepest pits that we think we're never going to crawl out of! It can take from us all our strength, making us believe that we're simply finished. It can totally snatch away all of our comforts. It can.
It buries itself deep in our hearts and won't let us go. It encourages us with teachers-- teachers that appear when we least expect. And it looks us in the eyes and says clearly: "Oh my dear, your longings aren't stupid. Believe!"
Hope is life's great calling, I believe.
I'm so thankful that when we were ready to give up . . . to say that what we had was good enough . . . to say that we had so many blessings to count . . . why ask for more?
And we did it. We kept holding space in our lives and our home for a child.
A child, young or older, a child of any nationality and or race, a child from anywhere really, that was meant to be in our family.
So know this: when the time came for a girl to come into our lives, I was in awe. All we had to do was hold on for the ride. Grace surprised us with its pace.
And when we knew it was official . . . that this great thing was really happening . . . Kevin and I felt so much joy (and still do). So much joy that we held each other tight and felt so much pride that we overcame what could have broken us. (It really could have!)
As for you, my friends, don't give up hope whatever your dreams are! Listen to your longings. Keep praying. Keep working. Keep believing and listening to those voices that say "You can."
Mary is 36 weeks pregnant, and baby Jesus is due any day.
How do we learn to wait for a baby savior?
Waiting for Christmas is about waiting for a baby to be born, and as any mom will tell you, that kind of waiting is hard work. We get impatient. We get distracted. We take baby waiting as primarily an excuse to eat huge quantities of butter, chocolate, and combinations of the two. But babies change everything, and learning to wait with hopeful longing for God’s new life to burst into the world is at the heart of the Christian faith.
But not everyone who waits for babies waits 40-week gestational periods. There are some parents who must endure rounds and rounds of infertility tests and treatments to even have the possibility hearing that a baby is officially on the way. There are some parents who wait by wading through the rigors of adoption paperwork and court dates. There are some parents who wait for babies who doctors have said have little chance of survival out of utero. There are some co-waiters: aunts and uncles, grandparents, and siblings who come alongside those who wait for babies, both when there is a due date and also when there is not.
What can all of these experiences of waiting teach us about waiting for baby Jesus?
And again, this Advent season, we invite you to learn to wait for a baby Savior by waiting with us.
If you would like a PDF of the project emailed to you, leave your email in the comments or sent a message in the “Contact” section of the blog and we’ll be glad to send you the daily devotions.
With anticipation,
Sarah and Elizabeth
Here are some of our favorite posts from the project to get you started reading:
“Discovering Joy” Dayna Olson-Getty (a grieving mom’s story about finding peace)
“Discovering Joy” Elizabeth Hagan (a grieving mom to be)
“Discovering Joy” Susan Smartt Cook (a midwife’s perspective on waiting)
“Love That Groans” Beth Dotson (a grandmother who has waited with others)
“Love That Groans” Joy Bennett (a grieving mother who lost a child)
“Waiting with Hope” Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (an adoptive dad)
“Waiting with Hope” Sarah Jobe (a mom of 2 young girls)
