Unexpected Grace in the Longing for Motherhood
Nearly 25 years have elapsed since homeschool whiz kid Joshua Harris became a bestselling author peddling a radical anti-dating manifesto I Kissed Dating Goodbye. His target audience, then in middle and high school, are now nearing their late 30s and early 40s. For many of us, the courtship and marriage that dangled in front of us like a carrot never materialized, leaving us inept at navigating the dating world for the first time later in life. Others were young when they entered into marriages that for a variety of reasons ended in divorce and now find themselves navigating the shattered fragments of an idyllic future. Whatever the story, many women from the I Kissed Dating Goodbye generation are aging rapidly toward a closing window of motherhood.
The ache of longing for motherhood is one of the rarely-discussed aspects of singleness, while married couples usually corner the market on baby fever. However, I discovered the scope of the impact, not just of my singleness, but of my childlessness, when I made the mistake of checking my phone at a stoplight and found myself in spontaneous tears just as the light turned green. I was not in any particularly emotive frame of mind, as I casually glanced down to kill time. I certainly hadn’t been thinking about my high school friend. I couldn’t recall the last time I had spoken in person with her. She was one of those friends whose positive memory remained a fixture, even though the natural ebb and flow of life circumstances had separated our paths further apart. Yet, a photo she posted left me undone. Not a picture of herself, but a picture of two pairs of pink baby shoes with the caption that she was expecting twin girls.
I can’t explain what happened next, other than I fell apart, in messy, ugly sobs of sheer joy, relief and even hope. Along with a torrent of emotion, that picture had unlocked a spiritual realization: God answers prayers after all. My heart had ached with her from a distance as she and her husband battled infertility and experienced miscarriage. I had prayed for her to become pregnant and carry a healthy baby, but seeing the cutest pairs of pink shoes representing the abundance of God’s reply when he finally said “yes,” released something inside that surprised me. As I wept tears of joy for her answered prayer, I realized that my tears were also for the hope that my unanswered prayers for marriage and family had not gone unheard.
Over the years, I have found myself deeply invested in the pain of my friends and acquaintances who struggle with infertility. I feel their longing to have a child keenly—the emptiness in their arms, the reorienting of expectations to an unforeseen reality. When, through adoption, or miraculous conception, I have seen them become mothers, my joy at the fulfillment of their deepest longings has been overwhelming and genuine. I have come to realize that I experienced my own unmet longings in them. Both of us find ourselves childless, and desperately wishing for motherhood. While married women are often freer to be open about the longing for motherhood, the pain is similar. Consider the biblical word barren. By broadening the definition to simply mean an unmet desire for motherhood, hope for both single and married women alike can be found in considering the barren women of the Bible.
Pain Is Better Shared than Compared
First, the pain of barrenness is meant to be shared, not compared. Even in broadening the definition of barrenness, there is pain, confusion, and often the grief of miscarriage that comes with clinical infertility that I do not know as a single woman who has not yet tried to have a baby. Conversely, there is a deep loneliness and uncertainty about the future that I face that someone walking through childlessness with a loving husband does not know. There is an added pain for women in both categories who have aged past menopause. Someone with no children, may downplay the pain of someone struggling to conceive a second child. We share more pain than we probably realize, though the temptation to create a suffering hierarchy can arise. I’ve heard of single women marginalized from fellowship and asked to provide childcare instead of being included. I’ve also seen nasty exchanges in which single women dismiss any hardship a married woman faces because “at least you have someone to come home to.” Defending your position on the hardship hierarchy accomplishes nothing except driving groups of women who are suffering with barrenness apart and deepening our pain.
“Defending your position on the hardship hierarchy accomplishes nothing except driving groups of women who are suffering with barrenness apart and deepening our pain.”
Consider two women who experienced barrenness as well as the temptation to compare: the sisters, Leah and Rachel, who shared a hapless husband Jacob. Leah was jealous of Rachel because of her beauty and because Jacob loved her. Rachel was jealous of Leah because Leah popped out babies like a bunny rabbit and Rachel was barren. Enter the hardship hierarchy. In a situation when the sisters could have supported one another in their personal struggle, each went on the offensive. Even as God worked to accomplish his purposes, opening and closing both of their wombs in different seasons, their strife resulted in further loneliness and deeper pain for both of them.
Pain Is Alleviated in More than One Way
Second, barrenness is temporary. Each and every woman described as barren in the Bible eventually becomes a mother, some under the most miraculous of circumstances. These women carried the societal shame and stigma of empty wombs, in some cases, well past their natural child-bearing years. Consider Sarah and Elizabeth, well-advanced in years before bearing children. Consider Ruth, who no doubt considered her child-bearing opportunity passed. Yet, God was not limited by age or the impossibility of circumstances, or reproductive biology.
This does not mean that the unmet desires for motherhood will be fulfilled in mothering a child. Think of Hannah, who after giving birth to Samuel dedicated him to God by giving him to the temple to be raised by Eli in the service of ministry. After leaving him in the temple she prayed: “My heart exults in the LORD; my horn is exulted in the Lord. My mouth decides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation” (1 Sam. 2:1). In her season of barrenness, she thought that raising a child would be the fulfillment of her desires. But by the time she gave birth to that child, God had so filled her with himself and his kingdom work, that she is filled with a different kind of joy in surrendering her son to God’s service. She prayed, “the barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn” (1 Sam. 2:5). The number seven often appears in the Bible in association with completion. It’s almost as if Hannah is saying that the Lord filled the barrenness in her life with such fullness, that her joy is greater with the plans God had for her that being a mother of the many children. What she thought she wanted would have made her forlorn by comparison.
“But for others, God has plans to fill the emptiness in this barren season in ways we could never have imagined. ”
For many of us waiting on motherhood, God can and will fill that desire through marriages we didn’t see coming, rainbow babies that bring joy after the heartache of miscarriage, adoption, surrogacy, fostering, and many other means. But for others, God has plans to fill the emptiness in this barren season in ways we could never have imagined. Considering barrenness as a season, and not a permanent identity, better postures us to be open to the work that God is doing in these circumstances of pain and emptiness. To quote Nancy Guthrie in her excellent book God Does His Best Work with Empty, “You may have come to see your emptiness as your greatest problem, but I hope to convince you that when God sees the emptiness in your life, he sees it as his greatest opportunity . . . God does his best work with empty, as by his Spirit he fills it with himself” (4).
Pain Indicates God Is Working Behind the Scenes
Finally, barrenness is a mark of favor. From the perspective of each of the barren women in the Bible, their stories might read something like: “I wanted a baby. I couldn’t have a baby. God miraculously healed my barrenness.” Suppose however, we were to flip the narrative and look at the big picture; when God wants to accomplish something great through a special baby, he makes a womb barren in order to display his glory more greatly. Think of the story of salvation. The Abrahamic covenant begins with Abraham saying to God “What will you give me, for I continue childless?” (Gen. 15:2) Then God says these beautiful words “Look toward the heavens, and number the stars, if you are able to number them . . . so shall your offspring be” (Gen. 15:5). The earliest whispers of redemption begin with a barren womb and a miraculous conception.
Isaac’s wife Rebecca faces barrenness, and after many prayers, God fills her womb with Jacob and Esau. Jacob’s wives Leah and Rachel each face seasons of barrenness as God opens and closes their wombs according to his plans. The pattern continues. In Judges, the story of the mighty strongman Samson begins after his parents’ long struggle with infertility, so that God’s glory is clearly on display when that barren womb is filled with such strength. When God wants to bring the great prophet Samuel into the world, he chooses the barren womb of Hannah. Obed, the grandfather of David, is a miracle baby, born after the tremendous loss and childlessness of Naomi and Ruth, the bond they shared and the surprise Boaz ending. What about the baby who will grow up to “prepare the way of the Lord” and who will baptize the incarnate son of God? Born to a homeschool mom with seven kids and an oversized van? Nope! Born into the womb of the barren Elizabeth, who, like Sarah, had aged well past the traditional biological timeframe to bear children. John the Baptist like so many others before him was conceived in a barren womb so that the greatness and glory of God might be more fully on display. Salvation springs from barrenness!
What does all of this mean for those of us stuck in a season of waiting on motherhood? The presence of barrenness indicates the favor and presence of a God at work. By supporting one another, casting our trust on the God who sees, and treasuring his Kingdom above all else, our view of this season can be transformed from a lack to an opportunity, from being overlooked to being set apart in favor, and from disappointment to unshakable hope.
Erin Jones is a freelance writer in Bethesda, Maryland. After teaching humanities for nearly a decade, she now works in music and communications at her much-beloved Presbyterian Church. While completing a Masters in English from Middlebury College, she spent three summers studying medieval literature at Oxford University, and returned to Oxford to study Choral Composition. She has written and managed social media for Romanian Christian Enterprises, and acts as educational consultant and blogger for VenoArt. Additional publications include, Servants of Grace, Sports Spectrum, Bethesda Magazine, and Heart and Soul Magazine. For more of her writing, visit Pencil & Uke.