Unto Us a Child (will be) Born

 It was one of those "put your foot in your mouth" moments, only I didn't know it for years.

I was at a gathering of young adults in conversation with Gary and Sandra, when Arthur joined our group and announced that his wife was pregnant. They already had kids, but every child is an exciting grace from God, and worthy of celebration, so of course we were enthusiastic and celebratory. When the thrill died down, I looked at Gary and Sandra and said........(wait for it)..........."When are YOU going to have kids?"

Yah. True story.

Sandra looked up at Gary with what I interpreted to be a "yeah, honey, when are we going to have kids?", whilst Gary looked toward the exit of the building with what I interpreted to be a "not this conversation again..." kind of look. I walked away that night hoping I had inspired them to start trying.

It was years later when I heard that they had been trying for a long time to have children, but God had chosen not to bless them that way yet. THAT is when my foot got aggressively shoved in my mouth by the Holy Spirit. My words didn't inspire them to do anything except try to figure out how to graciously change the subject.

I had been taught (or perhaps, I had accidentally 'caught') the notion that when a man and a woman come together, babies just kinda happen. Most of our adult lives as married people is spent working through the complex and expensive labor of avoiding children. Couples with fertility problems were one in a million. If you didn't want children, you had to be careful and crafty with enjoying one another and avoiding that certainty.

When I got married, I was fairly certain we would have a honeymoon baby. When that didn't happen, I was fairly certain we would have a honeymoon plus 1 month baby. When that didn't happen, I just knew we were going to have a honeymoon plus 2 months baby. When that didn't happen...

It was the beginning of 4 years of "when that didn't happen". How could I be one of the "one in a million" couples that struggled with fertility? I wanted 12 sons. I would never use contraception. I had dreams about having kids. I would day dream about how to teach different things to kids of different ages. I would day dream about building forts in the woods. I would joke that I'd have the world's best ultimate frisbee team, and every player would have my last name. And yet...when that didn't happen...

I'm the type of husband that wants to kick the door down, slay the dragon, and rescue the princess. I spent 4 years hearing the princess crying, feeling the mountain rumble under my feet as the dragon huffed and puffed beneath me, and seeing the door, but time after time, I failed to even get it to budge. This was a door I couldn't open. This was a dragon I couldn't slay. This was a princess I couldn't rescue. I've never felt more helpless as a husband than when I'm holding a crying wife who has been thinking, and working, and training, and praying her entire life to be a godly mother of a godly generation, and yet month after month is having "when that didn't happen" thrown in her face. The conversations we had about God's goodness in the midst of awful trials...the conversations we've had about being genuinely happy for younger couples who got pregnant while we were desperate for it ourselves...the conversations we've had about understanding God's justice when the world seems hell-bent (literally) on murdering as many babies as it can and we, who are desperate to raise children to love and enjoy God can't seem to make it work...the conversations we've had about surprise pregnancies by couples who were actively trying to avoid receiving that gift from God while we were paying thousands of dollars to encourage it, and still nothing...

And then come to find, infertility is NOT a one-in-a-million thing. It's next door. It's in the pew behind you. It's in your Facebook feed. And at my church, it's standing in the pulpit. 

God has not promised us the 'why's of this world, but he has taught us a lot of 'how's. "Why am I experiencing this?" is a lot harder to find the answer to than "How does a follower of Jesus Christ demonstrate love and confidence in God in the midst of  an experience like this?" And that is where I spent most of my focus. How can I demonstrate non-circumstantial joy in Christ while watching couples bounce babies up and down on their laps and my lap is empty? What does it look like to suffer well in a pain like this? How is Jesus still the hero of my story while this ridiculous, awful, monstrous dragon is still rumbling under my mountain? Honestly, between you and me, those are the more important questions to answer anyway. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I follow Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is supremely worthy of being followed, and I am supremely unworthy of being allowed to do so. Yet, that which is inside of me that makes me unworthy is a dragon that was slayed long, long ago. That door still lies on the ground, having been burst from its hinges by the resurrection power of God. The hero emerged with his precious bride. And so I follow. My warfare now focuses on defeating those parts of my heart that want to try God's goodness in the crucible of my own disappointments. The opportunity to develop the kind of trust in God that delights in him while suffering confusing, counter-intuitive heartache is a gift...even while the grief is raw and real, and my princess remains imprisoned under the mountain.

I've learned so much, and am grateful for God's constant, patient care for me. It took too long for me to learn that there are some dragons God doesn't expect me to slay. Some dragons continue to cause difficulties not so that I can rise and be the hero, but so that we will day in, day out look to the Hero who has already defeated the greatest Dragon of all. And so, we patiently waited, trusted, prayed, and cried. "Jesus, you have the be the hero here. I'm done fighting. I don't understand this trial, but I do understand you, and I know you're good no matter what I'm going through."

Brace yourself.

We're parents!

It would seem that this is one of those rare occasions in which God answers my 'why'. God didn't slay my dragon because he wanted me to take up arms against a different one; a fierce, awful, terrifying dragon who has been working and scheming behind the scenes of thousands and thousands of other couples' infertility battles. Right now, spread out in the freezers of fertility clinics across the nation, there are hundreds of thousands of precious, unborn, human persons stuck in time, waiting for the opportunity for a chance at life. This is my why. Through God's providence, my wife and I became aware of this gross reality about a year or so ago, and we adopted one.

Many couples who struggle with infertility choose to go through IVF, a process whereby multiple eggs are collected and fertilized, and only a few get implanted. The "left-over" eggs embryos babies are then either discarded destroyed killed or put up for adoption. As a result of this, there is an uncountable mass of babies that need wombs to develop in and families to love them. When I tell people about this, the majority of them express a form of shock and surprise at such a reality. "I've never heard of embryo adoption" they might say. I hadn't either. It's not well-known. It's not popular. It doesn't get the attention in churches that it ought to. These are human beings. These are children. These are orphans.

Check out James 1:27 "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." While this passage certainly has a lot of implications, there are two implications that stand out to me given the situation before us. First, orphans need to be "visited...in their affliction". This doesn't mean "come over for tea". It means  to show up and act on behalf of. For some of us, that means spreading the word about their current situation. For others, it means opening our homes to them through embryo adoption. I'll leave that up to you and God. Second, is that we can't be "stained from the world" in the sense that we contribute to the problem. Oh the ways I wish I had a voice to beg couples to not do IVF and instead adopt one of these precious, unborn, human persons. Oh the ways I wish I had a voice to exhort couples that don't even have fertility problems to consider adopting one of these precious, unborn, human persons. Oh the ways I wish I had a voice to implore families to reject the notion of "family planning", to reject the notion that they have the final say in how many children they want to have, to reject the notion that they can possibly be "done having children". It's not Bible. It's not Christian. It's not worth it.

Our sweet little baby is of Indian decent. It doesn't have any of our genetics. It won't look like us. It won't have our mannerisms. But it will be ours. And you better believe we're going to go back and attempt to rescue more. Will you pray about answering the call to care for these orphans? There is work to do, Church. I could be wrong...but that's my take on it.

Ephesians 1:5-6 "In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved."