Too often, the infertility experience is segmented into categories: physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. Despite the fact that all these component pieces are parts of our experience, no one seems able to present a comprehensive picture: here’s what it will be like, and here’s how you get through it. Not the “experts,” not the church, not family or friends.
As a result, we’re forced to compartmentalize our search for understanding, gathering whatever information we can from whatever source seems appropriate. Most of us respond by talking to every authority, researching every possibility, investigating every option, exploring every theory, considering every alternative, looking for every possible answer… all while trying to meet the needs of our bodies, minds and spirits. And trying to be good partners. And trying to keep from losing our minds.
It’s exhausting, stressful work.
The alternative, we fear, is to miss a critical piece of information that could have been THE answer. The one piece of the puzzle that could have made the whole picture clear to us, gotten us through this, and moved us closer to our dream of becoming parents. So, we gather every scrap of information that could possibly be relevant, evaluate and synthesize it all, and try to figure out how it applies to our particular story.
It’s the only way to get through this… isn’t it?
Thankfully, no. It’s actually possible to identify an area of overlap where all these categories intersect, and where the most meaningful questions are answered. It is where our infertility struggles encounter God’s promises in a powerful, life-changing way.
How – and where – do we find that area of overlap? Not by looking where we’ve been looking…
As Albert Einstein said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If we want to change our experience, we will need to change what we’ve been doing. We will need to stop chasing information as if that, alone, could transform our experience. It can’t, nor can it guarantee control. And that’s what we’ve really been chasing.
Without realizing it, we’ve been pursuing a mirage – a vision of ourselves as so well-informed we have control. No matter how hard or fast we chase after this image of ourselves, we will never catch it. It is an illusion. And it’s our inability to do the impossible that is the source of our frustration and hopelessness.
Instead, we need to follow the psalmist’s advice, “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.”
How do we follow that advice? We find rest in God when we stop chasing control, come to a stand-still, and shift attention from the obsessive quest for answers to His trustworthy omniscience. He, alone, knows how to make all things possible. He, alone, knows how to produce a miracle that defies all odds and confounds all experts. He, alone, knows how this story will end and why this journey will have been a blessing-in-disguise.
How does that relate to finding hope? It makes room for what we cannot explain or control. It invites the miraculous into our story – and that possibility is great cause for hope. It is bigger, better, and more powerful than any information we can find or any moment we might want to control.
What we need is not more information, but a hope that will not disappoint us. That is the very thing God promises to give us. Claim His promise, lean into it, and find what you really need.
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