Trusting God and Infertility - Part 4
For us our journey with infertility started at different points: I found out I could not conceive when I was 11, and I told my now-husband when we met and realised that we were going to have a life-long relationship aged 16 and 17. Whether or not we would ever have children was always to us a side-issue, compared with our certainty that we were ideally suited in every other way that mattered to us. Some people would say that we should never have married, knowing that we would never procreate, but we believe that Eve was made for Adam as a companion and helper first, and as a mother for his children second, so to us a marriage which is not blessed with children is every bit as precious in God's eyes as one which fills a house with pattering feet. We have been married 10 happy years, and this June we adopted our beautiful son, who was aged 18 months at the time. To us he is the "cherry on the icing on our cake" and while we are thrilled to be his parents and wholeheartedly thank the Lord for blessing us with the chance to be his mummy and daddy, we would have continued to be happy and content and fulfilled with our childless marriage.For both of us, infertility was hardest when we fought against it. Accepting God's will for us might be to never have children was not a smooth journey: there would be weeks or months when we could honestly say we did submit to His will, followed by periods where one or both of us would become distressed and rebel against it. Acknowledging that there would continue to be times of trial and testing, moments when the pain was intense, helped us to cope and meant that we could enjoy the periods of contentment in peace. We found that often the attitude of many in the Christian community that childless marriage is somehow a shallow, empty thing wounded us: sentiment such as those expressed in the poem which was featured on this blog recently were very painful to us, especially as we knew that we had a happy, joy-filled home and no shortage of subjects to talk about. I believe that if in the period when a couple are waiting to see if God will send them children they do all in their power to enjoy the blessings they do have, such as the joy of companionship and loving intimacy with another human being, they would find beautiful richness and fulfilment in being a husband and wife: after all, there will be many years when the children are grown and busy with their own lives when the couple will be thrown back upon that first relationship and need it to be strong and successful.So often parenthood [and specifically motherhood] is held up as a supreme human relationship that is the only real fulfilment one can know - when the Lord uses marriage to illustrate His relationship with His people, more often than parenthood, suggesting how central and significant that relationship is of oneness and shared purpose. If we can embrace the wonder of Christian marriage, then Christian parenting can only be enriched and nourished by the love and understanding that continue to blossom between a husband and wife. To be gazing sorrowfully at the dreams we have, can mean that we miss the far more lovely reality within our grasp. Becoming a parent is as fraught with challenges and difficulties, with burdens as well as blessings, that we are wrong to cling to the thought "if only I could be a mother, I would be happy then" or "if only we had children I would be at peace". Just as the unmarried can look ahead to wedded bliss as a "happy ever after" moment, so those of us who wait for children can think of after the birth or after the placement for adoption as a "happy ending", when it is more of a beginning, and a start to an adventure which will have as many "bitter" moments as "sweet" ones.We feel the Lord has blessed us with a 10 year long honeymoon. Waiting ten years for our son often felt like second best, and people have indeed suggested to us that adopting is not as good as having "one of your own". But we see clearly how God's plan was the very best for us, and the idea that we might have had a biological child years ago and never known our darling son is an awful thought! To have missed the adventure of adoption and the joy of this particular special little man would have been to have missed a great blessing from God's hand. Whether one has one child or twelve, whether it takes years of trying or happens on honeymoon, whether the child is adopted or biological, whether the family stays a family of two or grows, that circumstance is God's blessing to that man and that woman, the very best He has planned for them. My prayer for those who share the journey of infertility is that God would send them little ones to raise for His glory, but more than that, that He would grant them a peaceful and trusting heart. The Lord has a beautiful promise for those who will never have children but who nonetheless live for Him and love Him: "Even to them I will give in My house and within My walls, a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off" [Isaiah 56:5] -Mrs. Oscar Pinnington
posted by Crystal Paine at 10:56 AM
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