Staying Missional While Struggling To Have Kids

My husband and I have been trying to have children and have been struggling. We’ve prayed, I’ve seen doctors and done all kinds of tests, I’ve done all I can to lose weight the past few years and have the healthiest diet imaginable to better our chances. Then this summer I had two miscarriages; it was devastating and heartbreaking. The suffering was so painful that honestly all I wanted to do was hide away from the world. To be honest the last thing I wanted to do was to be missional in any way. I was suffering, struggling, angry, and wresting God with many doubts and questions.

Through it I learned that as we wrestle with God he remains faithful. It’s like a child wrestling with their father and eventually the child grows weary and finds that they fall not into arms that are rough and careless but arms that are gentle and sympathetic; arms that want to hold you through it.

As I came to the point of resting in God’s gentle arms I wrote in my journal, “God is my Comforter and it moves His heart that we are struggling over not being able to have a baby right now. He is near, nearer than I even know. In His sovereign time, in His sovereign way, He has a plan. Time alone is not the healer of all things; God through time is the True Healer. I feel comfort knowing my hurt matters to Him. Our desire for a baby is a godly desire because He is the one who creates and loves life. Thank you for being God even through my struggles.”

Staying missional through the suffering of infertility and miscarriage is hard. I know the tendency to want to run away. I know it can be hard to want to be around other women who are moms. I know how easy it is to feel envious of moms. I know how easy it is to resent the season you are in while wanting to be in the season of motherhood. Yet God has shown me to take heart and continue entrusting my soul to a faithful Creator while doing good (1 Peter 4: 19). It’s refreshing to realize that it’s okay to admit you are hurting and yet you can keep trusting God, being vulnerable with others, and reaching out to a broken world in need.

If you are struggling with infertility or the pain of a miscarriage I encourage you to not carry this burden alone. Find a Christian woman you trust and share this hurt and ask for prayer (Galatians 6:2), and also seek ways to reach out to others in their personal struggles. For me being missional focused even through my hurt this summer started with praying for all the children of the mom’s I know and investing in the lives of people around me.   

Who is someone you know who is suffering? I encourage you to pray about how you can be present with them through their hurt. One of the most impactful things for me was a friend who bought me a beautiful bouquet of roses and another friend who just listened and cried with me.

About Hope

Hope grew up as a small town girl from Montana with a big heart for Jesus to be known to the world. She moved to Colorado in 2005 to attend college at Mesa State College. Hope has a bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism and worked in local television for a few years after graduation. In 2011 she had the opportunity to travel to 11 countries around the world on a mission trip and gained a larger perspective and appreciation of the world. In 2012 Hope married her college crush Forrest and they joined staff for Master Plan Ministries. She is currently on staff reaching out to college students at the college she had once attended herself; now known as Colorado Mesa University.  

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