Thankful for Infertility

Yep...you read that right. This year, I'm thankful for infertility. 

It is around this time of year that people begin to reflect on the year past. Where you find more folks gazing off into the sunset pondering what went wrong and what went right these last 11 months. I'm no different, in fact, I'm likely queen of those people. I've always had a tendency to gaze...

This year I started thinking about the things God taught me. How different my life looks now than it did six and a half years ago when I asked Him to save me. And over and over my mind is taken to how thankful I am for my infertility. I'm not being facetious and I'm not pretending it hasn't been the most painful journey I've ever taken, but it has been the single most important thing God has used to grow me.

I always had a vision of how life would look. Grow up, get married, have babies. And every book or movie I ever read or watched made it seem like that was all so simple. Like POOF, you're married and now babies come. And I couldn't wait for babies! I've been picking out names for my children for as long as I can remember. My cousin and I have lists upon lists of boy names and girl names and we know each other's top favorites that we could never steal. Everyone around me seemed super fertile and pregnancies just popped up everywhere.

And then I got married. Like right out of a fairy tale. He wasn't perfect, neither was I, but he was perfect for me. We balanced each other out and mixed so well. Our day was beautiful, encompassed in love. And that night we began trying for a family. And three months later, I miscarried our first child. Suddenly, the illusion of that plan dissipated around me and I realized that I had no idea what this chapter held.

Fast forward six years, one more miscarriage, the big C word scare, and three years of no more conception. I can stand here today and say that I am grateful for this journey. I won't share the nitty gritty details. They're mine, and my husbands, and God's. They are raw and full of hurt and love and a sea of tears. But here is what I've learned- if my life is a greater testimony for God's glory without children, then I will never have children, and HE IS ENOUGH. 

I can peek inside my life and look around and see the dozens of children who I get to love and be loved by. The friends and family who lend me their babies, the sweet boys and girls I have the privilege to teach in Sunday School and Master Clubs, the snuggles I cherish in the church nursery, the connections I'm somehow able to form with strangers children.  There is no shortage of children in my life. And when I have moments of weakness where my arms ache to hold a child of my own, there always seems to be one of them who shows me extra love - whether a card, a picture, or a big old hug.


I am thankful for infertility because it taught me God's peace. His grace. His mercy. His love. I learned to not focus on myself or my circumstances but His glory. My story may be different than I thought it would be, or how others think it should, but my story is exactly how God has written it. And in His hands, I trust it completely.

Through this all, 2 Corinthians 12:9 has become the verse I repeat to myself. And I can say with honesty that it has become true in my life. I am content in my infertility. I am no longer seeking something better, something more. I am happy to allow Christ to work in me and through me. Teaching me along the way.