Cedar N' Steel

We’ve all played the game where someone asks you to list three things you’d like to have with you if you were stranded on a deserted island. Knowing in all likelihood this probably won’t occur, we rattle off things like our favorite book or food or if you’re more literal like me, survival items like rope, a knife, something to catch rain water, etc. On the nature channel, it always says to find a source of water first, then shelter, a food source, a place to create fire, taking care of your basic needs. What the show doesn’t account for are the mental ramifications of your situation…the feeling of utter isolation from any other human being with no foreseeable way out.

The feeling of isolation has been the worst part of the whole infertility process. If you’ve never gone through infertility, you simply cannot relate to the emotional turmoil it creates. You feel cut off from the world around you with no foreseeable end in sight. While all your friends and family move forward with their lives and family planning, you remain stuck in purgatory between your friends who can’t even fathom parenthood and those whose husbands seemingly sneeze on them and Boom!…baby on the way. Even your closest family members can’t understand and when you try to make them, their ignorant “advice” only makes you more upset. You develop irrational feelings of resentment and anger towards people who only desire to help. So you cope by cutting yourself off from people, places, activities, and anything else that causes pain, secluding yourself on your own personal deserted island.

While all my friends and family members announced their good news one after the other, I threw away yet another negative pregnancy test or bought another box of tampons. Month after month while we tried on our own, it was the same cycle. Period comes–>exercise for 2 weeks to alleviate my pissed off mood—>ovulation predictor kit –>well timed sex–>2 weeks of waiting and trying not to do anything to mess it all up–>negative early result pregnancy test (or 2)–>Period comes…All the while getting invited to baby shower after baby shower, seeing pregnant woman after pregnant woman (is there something in the water in the South and on the PGA Tour and where can I get some??).

Each month brought two weeks of pissed off followed by two weeks of hopeful anticipation and then crushing depression when the cramps started before getting pissed off again. Why couldn’t my body just do what I wanted it to do? Intense exercise became my coping mechanism, as a form of punishing myself for failing. I started avoiding people I loved, choosing solitary activities instead. I traveled with Michael, but avoided sitting and socializing with other wives in player dining. I avoided all baby showers like the plague. Seemingly innocuous things triggered crying meltdowns. My only ray of hope came from the fact that we could just try again the next month, praying fervently for the result we wanted.

I decided to keep it hidden, even from those closest to us. I smiled and laughed and told everyone things were fine while secretly holding my ticking time bomb of emotions in check until I found an appropriate time alone to detonate it. Poor Michael didn’t know how to console me and wisely allowed me to come to him when I felt better. All the while, I read Christian books about infertility, seeking to understand God’s purpose for my affliction, prayed for a baby, and asked God to take away the pain. I felt like I was praying to a brick wall; all I heard were crickets chirping every night when I cried out to Him in misery. No response, no comfort, no end in sight.

One of the books I read told me to pray for God to take away my desire for a baby if it wasn’t meant for us. Another told me to pray for others and stop thinking about myself. Another told me to be thankful for what I had and stop focusing on what I didn’t. Another told me to pray only for God’s best for me. Another told me to…you get the point. This seeking carried over into the IVF process where I tried anything and everything to “figure out” the magic formula God wanted from me so He could finally bestow our blessed bundle of joy. Every time I thought I’d finally gotten it right, I’d wait excitedly for the positive pregnancy test only to have my hopes crushed and then start anew searching for God’s purpose for my strife.

My beliefs about God over the last 10 years can be summed up into one single idea: I thought He blessed and prospered those who believed in Him and lived according to Christian standards, and brought calamity on those who didn’t believe or live uprightly.  That was my “theological suit” as Oswald Chambers likes to call it; my personally created idea of who God is according to what I’ve learned from all my Christian influences. However, the actual events of my life called into question everything I believed about God. I thought I was doing everything right, yet He still allowed misfortune. My experience of things contradicted my creed.

The biblical book of Job perfectly describes God’s expectations about Christian grief and suffering. Job’s family, possessions, health, literally everything except his life, are taken away from him for no apparent reason. Job cannot understand why such troubles have befallen him and he seeks answers from God. His friends try to console him and offer advice, but he cannot be soothed. He is on his own deserted island. Though his protestations of grief become increasingly more dramatic as the book goes on, Job never waivers in his beliefs about God’s integrity. Oh that I could have the faith of Job.

In “Baffled to Fight Better,” Oswald Chambers does a study through the book of Job. This study completely changed my mindset about God and about my suffering. I realized God was asking me to stop trying to figure out His purpose. I didn’t have to try to discern His will. I didn’t have to try to grow through my suffering. I didn’t have to pray harder or about certain things. I didn’t have to seek people to understand and provide support. All I had to do was sit alone on my deserted island, depleted from all my efforts, empty of everything I believed about God, utterly exhausted and crushed. He shattered me to pieces, brought me to a point of complete prostration where I had to acknowledge that I knew absolutely nothing about anything.

Chambers writes:

“In grief the sufferer frequently declares that no one on earth can assist him…There are some kinds of suffering and temptation and sorrow no one can sympathize with, and by means of them a man gets on to the solitary way of life. It is not the suffering of a man who does wrong and knows it; it is an isolation in which no one can sympathize.” Chambers then explains the reason God brought Job to his personal deserted island: so “God alone can come near.” Finally, in my defeated state, I became useful to Him, no longer polluted by my own ideology. It is only when we completely empty ourself of ourself that God can fill us with HIMSELF.

Chambers also writes: “It was grief that brought Job to this place, and grief is the only thing that will; joy does not, neither does prosperity, but grief does.” Joy doesn’t make you question anything. Grief makes you question EVERYTHING. It was only through grief God brought me to question what I believed about Him. It was only through grief that God isolated me from all worldly influences so He could finally come near, unimpeded by the friction of my human stubbornness.

Finally, God gave me an answer, and it was the same answer He gave Job at the end of the book. God’s ways are superior to mine. Who am I to think I can question Him, the creator and sustainer of the entire universe, and demand He give me what I want? Do I think I know better what’s best for my life compared to the One who knew every generation before me and knows every generation after?

God has whittled me down to the form of a newborn child, ready to learn from the only true teacher, God Himself. I know now that it’s not by my own efforts, but by His supernatural work in me that I become more like Jesus through the people and circumstances God orchestrates in my life. This whole situation isn’t even about giving us a baby. It’s about cultivating my personal relationship with God, whereby I completely submit to His authority and wisdom and simply seek to have unconditional faith that God is who He says He is, no matter how my life goes.

Finally, God has helped me emerge from the isolation of my deserted island, building a bridge only He could build, and solidly holds my hand as I traverse the choppy waters of the world’s difficulties. It’s not by my own efforts that I can play with my friends’ babies and genuinely be happy for someone’s pregnancy announcement. It’s God’s supernatural grace, and joy, and peace, and kindness, and most importantly strength that allows my inner being and outer being to finally be in sync. It’s a comfort I pray everyone can find when suffering hits; the comfort of knowing that despite our own limited perception, all is well.

Isaiah 55:9, Proverbs 3:5, Psalm 23:4, Psalm 34:18, Hebrews 13:6