For You, Yearning to be a Momma

It's been nine years.  NINE.

It's been nine years since we've been trying to conceive our next little love child.

Oh, friends, we have heard it all.

Living a life with grief is hard stuff, living a life with grief while still hearing silence from God is worse, and living a life with grief and hearing the most horrible, nasty, unloving things from "friends" is downright disgusting.

Please don't tell me any platitudes.  Please don't tell me what we "need" to be doing.  (We kinda know that already.)

Want to know what doesn't help?  When you're told by people that maybe when you *fill in the blank*, God will bless you with the children you long for.  Maybe when you _________, like we did, God will reward you as He has rewarded us!  

Want to know what that implies?  

That we are doing something wrong, and that we have brought this upon ourselves.  Also, that you have God's stamped approval, and others do not.

That is very, very, dangerous theology.

I've said before that I don't talk a lot about hot topics publicly, mainly because most people just want to argue, and minds will not be changed....because usually hearts have already been hardened.  However, when people are being hurt, I WILL speak up, I will take up for people who are being hurt, especially when it's people hurting them "in the name of their god".  (Notice the little 'g'?)

I often hear, and sometimes it comes from a very self-righteous place, "We're letting Gaw-d plan our family".  Please, for the love of your God, stop saying that.  We, too, have let God plan our family.  We have been met with one amazing child.  No idea what the future holds, though I hope it's several more children. I have seen the hurt in other's eyes, as well as our own, when those words are proudly exclaimed.  Find a better way.

Also, please stop seeing child after child in your family as confirmation of how holy you are.  Because we all know the truth, a pregnancy can happen many other ways.  I'm not getting into that in this post, but you get the point.  

That is so damaging.  I have so many dear friends who have tried for years to get pregnant, only to be met with silence.  They have no children at all.  They don't know if they ever will be able to.  We know so many couples who never were able to conceive, at all.  There are many people who have many children, call it God's "blessing", and attribute their "blessings" to their living rightly, and all the while take their marriages and children for granted.  Or, they will have a baby to save a marriage.  (Which is a lot of pressure to put on a baby.) This is so backwards.

God is a giver.  I'm not an expert, but I do know that God gives, whether we deserve it or not.  We canNOT earn the gifts of God, whether we want to admit that or not.  

What I've been learning to live with, together with my husband, is getting to know God the Withholder.  God the Silent One.  God the Giver of Sorrow.

For some reason, that's who we've come to know.

I hope it doesn't last much longer.  I hope something changes.

Until then, as I've spoken about grief for those who are too broken to speak for themselves.....I'll speak up for my loved ones on this, as well.

Please think before you speak.  Words affect us.  Words affect others.  They can bring hope, and they can hurt others. Please stop slinging Bible verses around, using them like salt to rub in the wounds of those who are hurting.

For you sweet, loving, motherly, amazing women who are wanting the gift of Motherhood, and have been met with silence from God, I write.  I am thinking of your sweet souls on this Mother's Day weekend.  Hang in there, you are not alone.

***God's gifts were never meant to be used in a way that strokes our egos.  Please don't use a child, any child, as a mere object that points to your own self-righteousness.  That puts a heavy load on a little child.***