I need to apologize to you.

I’ve been silent on this blog for a season. A four month season to be exact. On some days I would have told you it was intentional, I needed time out of the spotlight. While that’s possibly true, I think the larger issue keeping me silent was my shame.

yep. the S word.

We don’t like dealing with it. We find we have a limited vocabulary when it comes to shame. Oh we may sing songs about Jesus lifting the weight of shame, we may talk about it in our testimonies as something long ago in our past. But as something real, and tangible in our lives right now, we get real quiet.

Lets step back and look at the definition of shame according to Dr. Brene Brown:

Shame: the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and unworthy of love or belonging.

Dr. Brown also shares what she calls the ABCs of shame:

• we all have shame.
• we all are afraid to talk about shame
• the less we talk about shame the more control it has over our lives

Maybe I feel it more acutely because I work in ministry, but many days over the past few months I’ve felt this weight of shame bearing down on me, reminding me that if I only had enough faith, I would get the thing I wanted.

I also have been guilty of putting a timer on God and this season of waiting. Alright God, surely this is long enough right? We’ve learned to better rely on you, not look to our own timing and our own desires, can we please just have what we want now? Facepalm. right? but I’m so guilty of it this year, maybe you are too.

And so we keep silent, until we can turn the spotlight back on our pretty answered prayers and announce tadaaa! we got the thing the wanted.

Recently however, Ive been convicted, that for me, this silence is sin. That there is beauty, and weight, and spiritual significance in shining the spotlight on the unanswered prayers, on the mess of the uncertainty.

You may be thinking, wait, that’s what this blog is all about right? Sharing the mess of seasons of waiting? Yes it is. But I’m realizing that I was only okay with sharing my waiting for a season, and that after this self-appointed finish line appeared, God would have answered in some way.

So at the end of this summer when my husband and I found ourselves facing IVF as our next option forward to starting a family, I balked, and I clammed up.

You see my shame in not having God answer my prayer is two-fold, the first as mentioned, stems from the thought that if my faith was stronger, I’d be pregnant by now. The second is this feeling that by pursuing medical intervention (i.e. IUI or IVF) I am actively demonstrating my lack of faith and trying to take matters into my own hands. (God you can’t or won’t do this so I’m looking elsewhere).

This is getting heavy, right? But it’s been so important for me to wrestle through. And I’m hoping my thoughts, as jumbled as they are, may have value for someone else.

Bear with me. I’ve examined this issue from so many angles, let me walk you down a few of them, in case you’re facing similar thoughts.

Here’s the main thought plaguing me when it came to not pursuing IVF:

• Infertility and the Bible. Time and time again throughout the scriptures, God uses barren women in a spectacular way. He actively opens their wombs in His timing and for His purposes.

And here were two of my thoughts on pursuing IVF:

• The cancer or broken bone argument. Just as you wouldnt tell a friend with cancer that they shouldn’t consider chemo, radiation, or surgery, you shouldn’t tell a friend dealing with infertility not to consider IUI or IVF. Or think of it like this, a friend breaks their leg badly on the ski slopes, would you tell them just to pray about it and relax? When it comes to infertility many people like to advise you to just not stress, and it will happen, the fact of the matter is that infertility can and most often does stem from real medical issues and causes that relaxation will just never fix. And yes while God can heal us in His own power, we can all attest that God often chooses to heal through gifted medical professionals and modern science.
• Fallen world argument. We live in a broken and imperfect world. We all live with the consequences of sin in our lives, its effect on our families, our relationships, and our health. If you believe that different physical ailments, like infertility, are just a result of living in a broken toxic world, then it stands to reason that you would also do what you could to restore your body and health to the way God designed you to be. (just like how we exercise, eat well, and take medicine) The fact of the matter is that more and more connections are being made between our food and the chemicals in our world and infertility. And sadly infertility looks to only increase in the future as the average age of marriage, and our exposure to toxins goes steadily up.

After I wrestled with these reasonings for awhile I realized it didn’t matter whether or not I thought God was intentionally placing infertility in my life to teach me something, or whether it was just a result of this fallen world, but the important part was my faithfulness in how I walk through it each day.

I’ll wrap this up by summarizing what a friend and I were discussing the other day in regards to how we pray. We’ve both been in seasons of waiting, she for a partner, me for a baby. We talked about praying like Jacob, wrestling with God and refusing to let go until He blesses us and gives us what we want.

I was mulling over this for awhile and asked my husband, which is correct? Do we pray like Jacob, refusing to give up until He blesses us? Or do we ask simply for His will to be done?

His answer?

Both.

We should absolutely not give up on the desires He has placed in our hearts, we continue to pray fervently for His blessing, trusting in His promises. But we also pray like Jesus, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

So in that light, we decided moving forward with IVF was the right step for us. Maybe it is for you, maybe not, and that’s fine. For us, I knew if we didn’t pursue it, I would always wonder what if…

I’m still figuring this waiting thing out, but I invite you to once again step into the mess and uncertainty with me as I chronicle my IVF experience over the next couple weeks. This will be our second retrieval round with IVF. The first one in November resulted in only two eggs, both of which fertilized, but neither made to day 5. We’re praying for a better result this cycle as it’s most likely the last we will be able to do unless we want to go down the donor egg path, but we’ll get to that later.

For now I would love your prayers and would love to pray for you too if you’re also in a season of waiting.

Let me also encourage you, if God is tugging on your heart to share the hard thing you’re going through, do it. 

It won’t be easy, it will be scary, and awkward, and isolating. But it will also be beautiful and God-honoring, and uniting, and powerful.

You see shame thrives in silence.

So let’s not be silent any longer. Let’s be real, and let’s be open, as we share our waiting,

together.