Trusting in the Struggle

Social media is a blessing and a curse. There is opportunity for creative expression, humor, sharing our lives together, and more. While I mostly enjoy it (sometimes too much), there are days I have to put it away after seeing something because it is scary or painful. 

The online world does not know what is truly happening in my life and heart. It doesn’t know that for anyone. It’s not just a highlight reel for everyone. Some people post about the death of children, infertility, loss, and real struggle in their lives. While it can be helpful for others to see and read that someone else is experiencing the same as them or just cathartic for the creator of the content, it is still the harsh reality of the world we live in. Life is a struggle. 

Because of my own loss, and because I posted about it on very public platforms months after it happened, I wasn’t sure I wanted to post about the highlight of being pregnant again and carrying much farther along this time. Part of me was afraid of letting the world know and jinxing the pregnancy, and while that is not how reality works, it was still a thought in the back of my mind. My son still grew despite the posts about him coming.

The other issue with posting my incredible joy at becoming a mother again is that I knew there would be people seeing it who were experiencing loss and difficulty on their own journeys to becoming parents. After losing my pregnancy before, it would sometimes sting when I saw others post about their pregnancy. Someone else on Instagram posted a picture that said something like, “miscarriage is the loss of innocence that pregnancy always equals a baby.” Even though I knew that in my head, the experience was still painful. It made me hold my breath every day during this pregnancy.

Whether you grow a human in your body or if you grow them in your heart while someone else grows them in their body for you to adopt, becoming a parent is hard. Once they are in the outside world, it is a huge, arduous job to take care of them, but those who know the difficulties of having children or just loss, know that they would do just about anything to fulfill that role for a child of their own. It is worth all the pain and struggle to love your child.

So when I told the world about this exciting thing, guilt filled me. Guilt is not of the Lord. I did not do anything wrong, and children are a blessing. I felt it nonetheless. I wanted to rejoice in the incredible gift it is to carry this baby, to share with the world what God had given me and my husband, but I felt that it would hurt others. That was the last thing I wanted to do. 

The next day I saw a post from a friend who had lost another baby. This one she had carried longer than some others, and I cried. I don’t understand why God works the way He does. Most women are begging Him to tell them the lesson they need to learn so that they can have a baby. Despite their prayers, yearning, and undying hope, their bodies just aren’t giving or maybe just not sustaining a baby’s life. The body God gave them. 

What does all this mean? I have no idea. I do know that the Bible talks about infertility more than most would expect. It’s not something new, and God is still the same, good God. He gives women children in old age, He has adopted us as sons and heirs, and He is abounding in love.  

My gain is not someone else’s loss. When one woman gets pregnant and delivers a baby, that does not mean another woman struggling to do the same thing is losing because of the first woman’s gain. I think most women struggling to get pregnant and have a baby realize that. They aren’t hurt by the women having children, they just don’t understand why it is not happening for them. I don’t either.

I remember reading Job this year during a very difficult time in our lives and Job does not curse God even in all the difficulty he is experiencing. His friends encourage him badly, and he struggles. He finally asks God why? Why is this happening to him? He’s a good guy. He’s done the right things. He’s been a faithful servant of the Lord’s. 

God doesn’t tell him that He didn’t cause the problems for Job, nor does He tell Job why He allowed such travesty in Job’s life. He tells Job who He is. He asks Job where he was during the creation of the universe. He points out many of the moving parts of being God. He basically says, “Do you know who I Am?” Job did know who He was, and he worshipped God. 

When I read that, I knew that I needed to trust God with our difficult situation, and some days I do and some days I don’t. My trust (or lack thereof) doesn’t change anything about God. He is still God, and He still knows what He is doing. I don’t know why He has blessed me with children and has withheld (so far) from others. There is nothing I have done nor any lesson I have learned that gave me children. I don’t always feel worthy to have children. I don’t understand so much of what God does. I just know He is God. 

God works in the small intimate details of our lives. The ones we don’t show on social media, whether it is a highlight reel of our lives or not. Even if we are as real as we can be there, God works in the parts of our lives that we can’t even see sometimes. He brings things up over and over that we sometimes forget. He tells us to trust Him even when we don’t understand. He holds us in our loss. He sustains us in our trials. He knows the future that we cannot process right now.

Resting in Him is what He tells us to do in the pain and trials of our lives. Admittedly, I don’t know how to do that. I would like to fix my own problems as well as the problems of those I love, but that is my lesson right now. 

To the women I know and don’t know struggling with loss and infertility, I am so sorry. You are not forgotten even in the joy others might be experiencing. God sees you. I don’t know His plans, and I wish I could just tell you when and how He is going to give you a baby.  I was not there when God set the earth into motion. Even then, He knew your name. He does love you. I encourage you to lean on Him, just as I try to do the same for other parts of my life. He is waiting patiently for all of us.