Primary infertility.

The handwritten words scrawled on top of the laboratory requisition dropped into my gut like a rock. That’s… not possible, I thought. That’s not right at all.

It had been a year since my husband and I had stopped birth control and had begun the arduous journey of trying to conceive. In frustration, we finally made an appointment with our doctor, who wrote those dreaded words and began the gamut of tests to determine why we had not conceived.

“Don’t worry,” he said cheerfully. “Most couples begin the process of investigations and then immediately get pregnant.”

I clung to his words like a drowning woman. It won’t be long then, I reassured myself. Scoffing at those two words, primary infertility, I thought that our struggle would soon be in the past and we would be blessed by a cherub-like child in no time.

We waited nine more months to see a gynecologist. Things move slowly here in the Canada’s public health care system. Nine more months… and still no pregnancy.

He ran more tests.

Every single test came back normal.

“You’re still young,” the gynecologist said. “Everything looks good; it’s just a matter of time.”

By that time, my denial had shifted into anger.

How dare you tell me to keep waiting when I’ve waited nearly two years?

Of course, this was also the time when every fertile woman I knew became pregnant. The few that struggled to do so, even for a few months, eventually also conceived, and my husband and I were left with the sinking sense that we were being slowly abandoned in favour of the “exclusive parents’ club.”

With each new pregnancy or birth announcement, I pasted on a smile while my heart broke inside me.

I was so angry - at everyone else for somehow attaining what we could not, at the insensitive person who thrust a dagger into my heart with every well-meant comment about how “God has a plan for you” and “All in God’s timing,” and at myself for failing to produce a child for my husband like a “good Christian wife.”

Most of all, I was angry at God.

It’s not fair! Why do they get another child when we still have none?

Do you care for us at all?

Why are you withholding this good gift from us?

No one ever talks about how infertility challenges your theology of God.

That, my friends, is what I’m here to talk about today. In fact, I’m going to be talking about it all month, so stay tuned. The big question today is, Where is God in my infertility?

Underlying that question is the assumption that God is not present, that He left you. That He’s nowhere to be found in this vast darkness of infertility. Why? Because in the midst of infertility, you feel utterly and hopelessly abandoned, especially as every friend you have leaves you behind for a life that you increasingly feel like you will never understand or experience.

It feels like you’ve been forgotten.

You read the Biblical narratives of barren women - Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Samson’s mother, Hannah, and Elisabeth - and you begin to hope that maybe, just maybe God will remember you as He remembered these women. You realize that they, too, waited… a really long time, and then a miracle happened! God did not forget them after all!

But time continues to tick, and you realize that sometimes miracles happen. And sometimes they don’t.

What if God never grants you a child? What if He decides to say no to this “greatest blessing” as we so often hear children referred to in the church (more on children as a blessing next week!)?

Does the granting (or withholding) of a child determine God’s goodness and presence in your life?

This is a very difficult question, one that I grappled with for months, if not years. This is the sort of question that prods at the heart of Christianity: Is God really good? Ironically, it is also the question that the serpent whispered to the woman at the dawn of time.

My answer is: Absolutely and unequivocally, yes. God is always good.

How do I know that God is always good?

Let me lay it out like this: If God’s goodness is dependent on my fertility, then I am the master of God’s goodness. If my physical circumstances determine God’s goodness, then He is not God. I am.

In order for God to be God, He must be good all the time, regardless of circumstances. He is not shackled to the circumstances of our world and our time. He is God, which means He is above all, before all, and over all.

This means that His goodness does not change when I feel abandoned or angry. His lovingkindness is always present, even when I feel deserted in the wilderness. His mercy overflows when my womb feels empty. It’s not only that God’s goodness doesn’t change, but this unchanging goodness is abundantly more than I could ever ask for or imagine (see Eph. 3:20).

“In short, the circumstances of life do not always seem to be good, but God Himself is always good. Thus, though there may not always be happiness, there is always hope. That must be the basis of our faith - not that God gives us a happy life.” (as quoted by Lois Flowers, Infertility: Finding God’s Peace in the Journey, 53)

In the midst of my anger and hurt, I clung to this promise of God’s goodness. The surety of His promise to never leave or forsake me settled deep into my heart like a tether anchoring me to what is true and good.

Knowing that God is good doesn’t take away your pain, but it gives you an anchor in the storm.

I’m still infertile. It’s been four years now. And yet, despite the pain - or perhaps through it - I have grown more sure of God’s presence in my life. My suffering and sorrow allow me to step into the hurt with others, to sit in silence with them in their pain, and to know the truth of God’s loving presence and goodness even when it feels like all has been abandoned.

Lest you remain unconvinced that God understands your pain and your loneliness, I’d like to draw your attention to Jesus’ own suffering in the garden:

[Jesus] knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:42-44, NIV)

Then, consider Jesus’ words on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34b)

Where is God in my infertility? He’s right here beside me in the dark and in the pain. The Son of God fully understands the feeling of being abandoned by God, and His nail-scarred hands hold mine through it all.

In courage and in love,

Katelyn