Some of this has been connected to my own pain of losing a pregnancy, the twin of one of my children, and being unable to nurse. I considered these things as "tastes" of the real pain, which is the pain of not being able to bring forth fruit at all.
Infertility has become so widespread that any mention of Mother's Day has become controversial within the church. Instead of recognizing the mothers present, our congregations are compelled to acknowledge the sensitivity of infertile women on such a day. This pain is real, and it smarts on Mother's Day.
I remember sitting through a Mother's Day sermon once, and the pastor was going through what must be one of the standard passages for those men who choose to preach about family life on Mother's Day:
Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways!
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion!
May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life!
May you see your children's children!
Peace be upon Israel!
Psalm 128And another is like it:
Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one's youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127The particular pastor I was listening to on the particular Mother's Day of which I was speaking took the sociological route {something I've heard more than once} to help his congregation understand the significance of children to an agrarian, tribal culture. He explained what sort of blessing children, especially sons, were to these people, how they were an economic benefit to their families.
It's not that anything he said was wrong, but I did leave the sermon thinking that he missed the point. After all, the passage is quite objective. The children of a righteous man are "defined" as a reward. They don't magically become such at the age of eight when they can finally be of substantial assistance to their father in the fields; they are blessings from the moment of conception. A table surrounded by the bobbing heads of toddlers is a joy and reward to a righteous man, regardless of whether they are of any financial benefit.
I don't mean this to be a criticism of the pastor, for I believe he was trying his best to get across the blessing of children in a culture where children are seen as the complete opposite, as an imposition and inconvenience. This is the culture which, as standard procedure, takes unnatural and extrordinary means to avoid having babies.
It is this culture, with its inappropriate view of children, that brings such pain to infertile women. Think about it. A culture that doesn't value children thinks that the infertile woman should count her sterile womb as some sort of blessing. I have experienced a tiny taste of this myself, when we saw visible sighs of relief upon hearing that we were unable to have more children.
Our culture subtly sees the infertile woman as "blessed", which is the complete opposite of what Scripture says.
The tragic result of this is that a barren woman in our culture has no comfort and few comforters.
Why in the world, our culture says, is there cause to cry about the fact that you'll never get morning sickness, you'll never have pregnancy weight, you'll never stay up with sick toddlers, you'll never go on a boring field trip, and you'll never face a rebellious teenager?
What our culture overlooks is that bearing fruit is the most natural thing in the world, as much for a woman as for a tree. It is what we were designed to "do", and everything about us screams this truth in our ears when it doesn't go right. "Think" about the creation of woman:
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, "BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY AND FILL THE EARTH and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Genesis 1:27-28God created mankind and exhorted them to be fruitful. In a perfect world, this would have happened without incident. The presence of sin made things complicated, but it didn't change what a married woman was intended to be:
The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
Genesis 3:20Her very "name" identified her as a fruitful being.
But here we are. The world isn't perfect, and some women never become mothers, or have a really hard time becoming mothers. And this is "painful". It's painful because it isn't "natural" {thank you, Mr. Kern, for affirming this thought to me}.
I remember how I struggled with bitternness when I was unable to nurse my babies well. Measuring powder and water into a bottle and shaking them up was like a slap in the face every single time. This was the most "un"natural way in the world to feed my infant, and I knew it, and so I struggled. Everytime I nursed the baby, I dreaded having to give a supplement afterwards. I tried to be grateful that I wasn't born in some other age, when a mother's insufficient milk supply would mean the death of the child, but the truth was that, for a very long time, I couldn't get over the fact that my body wouldn't do what it was "obviously" designed to do.
This example of nursing problems can lead into the idea that women who require fertility treatments in order to conceive {even though they "can" conceive and bear a child and "are" mothers}, experience their own type of pain. It is not natural to require extensive tests and treatments in order to have children. And needing these things adds a dynamic to the marital relationship that can bring tension.
Until we understand this fact, that infertility in its many forms is "against the design" of the woman, we won't have the proper compassion. Instead, we will say something truly stupid, such as reminding her how many thousands of dirty diapers she'll never have to change.
So what is compassion? What is the alternative to empty platitudes? The answer is probably prayer. We all encounter the pains of a fallen world; sin weighs heavy upon the whole world, and infertility is not unique, nor is it modern:
Elkanah her husband would say to her, "Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?"
I Samuel 1:8Hannah's heart contained "bitterness", Scripture tells us, and she begged the LORD to look upon her "misery". I find it interesting that Scripture never condemns her for this. And because it doesn't, we need to rethink any temptation to tell an infertile woman to get over it. Get over what? "Her very nature?" This is not an easy obstacle to overcome.
This does not mean that a woman cannot find comfort in Christ. She can. It does not mean that she can not learn contentment. She can. But far be it from the rest of us to sound the clanging gong of Job's comforters. Rather, may we mourn with those who mourn, and pray for joy in the morning.
Reference: ceremonial-magic.blogspot.com
