As you know, I am a reproductive medicine healthcare worker, and spend a great deal of time thinking about, talking to, and writing about couples trying to conceive. This time of year especially, there is a lot of focus in the infertility community on the neglected needs of women, and the unintended insensitivity of those around them.
Next Sunday is Mother’s Day, a favorite on the calendar for celebrating the contributions of strong women to their families, communities and their churches. While recognition for mothers is a good and noble thing, there is another group of women in the church who are suffering incredibly on this day – infertile women. While in congregations around the country, mothers will be asked to stand to the applause of their church families, or glorified in romantic sermons about the value of these ladies, the infertile women will be silently dying inside. 1 in 8 couples experience infertility. Some of these represent women who have never had a baby, and others are experiencing secondary infertility, unable to repeat the miracle of carrying a child to term. They are often silent about their pain, avoiding the probing personal questions others ask, or pretending to delay motherhood. They feel alone, like no one understands what they are going through, and that they are somehow not “trying hard enough” or otherwise to blame for the lack of the blessing of children. The church is socially structured around families; husbands and wives with children, often with those not fitting into the mold left very much marginalized.
Mother’s Day is easily the most difficult day of year at church for women struggling to become pregnant, even more so than the parade of adorably dressed children at Easter, or the celebration of pregnancy and childbirth that is Christmas.
Why connect infertility and motherhood; why bring it up? Because it is your duty as clergy to minister to the poor in spirit, those suffering the most. I am not asking you to downplay or deny the magic of motherhood, instead please take a moment of the service that honors mothers to recognize the would-be mothers. Include them in the corporate prayer time, along with the members of the congregation needing healing. Offer them up and pray special blessing over them; they truly need it. Pray for the babies they have lost through miscarriages known only to them and God. Pray for patience in their wait, and for God to reveal Himself in the midst of their trial.
In the book of Samuel, we see Hannah, desperate to become a mother, praying and sobbing in the tabernacle. Eli the priest initially reacts by accusing her of being drunk, misunderstanding her entirely. How many Hannah’s are in your congregation now? Will you misunderstand them too?
Including and recognizing the infertile women in your church, will comfort them and reassure them that the Church is meant as a place for healing and support. Don’t be surprised if your thoughtful mention results in women opening up to you privately about their experiences. What an opportunity to seek out the lost and return their hearts to the fold. Women of faith will likely reach a crisis point with God over this issue, and need help sorting it out. What a significant ministry; a chance to make a big difference to a woman who may not know how to reconcile her pain with God’s grace.
However, she may not be there at all on Sunday, unable to face yet another year of sitting in her pew while what seems like every other woman in the church stands to the applause that honors the mothers. For her sake, and as a personal favor to me, please reach out to her.
