Hope Shouts Louder
This book is for you to use, not just read. We’ve written it because we want to be the bearers of good news. In fact, it’s the best news – God is real, and He wants you to know Him. He invites you into the adventure that He has planned for your life and we hope this book will help you on your way.
Extracts from chapter 5: Tough Questions
Becky: A heart-shaped hole
If truth be told, I’ve shied away from putting these next words into print. This part of my journey has been the most gut-wrenching of all. It’s the bit about not having children of my own. I don’t hate much but I hate the word childless. It sounds so empty. And barren, well that’s even worse. I won’t use it and struggle to say it out loud.
As described earlier, it wasn’t until my late thirties that I started to confront— no that’s too strong — to glance at the awful reality that I may not ever have my own children. In church, I suddenly began to notice things like how little arms wound around the neck of the mum sitting in the row in front of me. It would make me weep and when the children flooded past me to go to their groups, I would out and out sob. Once I didn’t just think about it but actually ran out of the building. Mostly I just sat there crying.
Sometimes people (let’s be blunt, Christians) would say heartless things. For example, once when I was holding a baby (any opportunity) someone said “Oh Becky, I didn’t take you for the maternal type!” I felt real rage at that one and if I hadn’t been holding said baby may have punched them in the face. I know, uncharacteristic, but that’s how I felt. Pronouncements like this would make me feel wretched, angry and misunderstood. I didn’t know how to deal with the strong reaction that rose within. On the positive side, I remember one lady lovingly and with understanding broached the subject, acknowledging that as a Christian, being single meant also missing out on having children. I really appreciated her reaching out and verbalising my predicament. Although nothing changed for a while, somehow it was helpful.
When I finally got married at 43, I thought I’d been given a last chance and hope soared. I managed to convince myself I would get pregnant on my wedding night. I didn’t. We tried our best (sorry, not sure how to put this delicately), but the statistics were proved right. Even in the face of the overwhelming odds, after a few unsuccessful months, I summoned my courage and sought medical advice. In a stumbling phone conversation with one young GP, she asked, in what sounded like an accusing tone, “Are you asking me to look into fertility options?” I simply didn’t know if I was or not, but her curt lack of empathy made me hang up asap. How excruciatingly unhelpful those few months were – particularly as one consultant I did summon up courage to see was herself heavily pregnant. We abandoned any further medical input and just prayed. If God wanted us to have a child, He would make it happen. As it didn’t, I assumed He didn’t and that caused me some problems that were only resolved very recently……
I’ll end this chapter with a significant revelation I had within the last few months that has helped to heal the deep pain of childlessness. My whole adult life I had (wrongly) assumed because I hadn’t had children, that God didn’t want me to have children. I trusted God to guide my life and He hadn’t brought about this most precious of experiences, so I concluded, as He knows best, for some reason not understood by me, it wasn’t part of His plan. I wasn’t angry with God over this, as He is God and I’m not, and who knows, maybe I would not have survived a pregnancy or birth or whatever, I just had to accept He thought it was best I didn’t have children.
One night in bed, I was mulling this over. I can’t remember even actually praying but suddenly as clear as anything into my spirit God said, “I’m sad too!” This was mind blowing. It was so unexpected. I would never have made that up. I would have expected Him to say “If only you’d…” or “You should have…” or even, “My ways are higher than your ways, just trust me”. But what He said was “I’m sad too.”
Somehow hearing that was deeply and profoundly (sometimes you need tautology) healing. I’d often asked myself questions like, “What’s wrong with me that God doesn’t want me reproduced?” Well, maybe He did but it just didn’t happen for me. Maybe it actually would have killed me. Maybe … anything. It just didn’t happen. But look at what I do have; I’m so, so blessed. I do have a family. No, they didn’t grow inside me, but they are mine, especially the six little ones who call me Becky Nana and have absolutely captivated my heart.
Rosie: Navigating the Valleys
Most of my life things have always turned out well and I’ve landed on my feet. Even when I made some misguided choices that put me at risk, I was always fine, so I believed myself to be pretty invincible up until the final stretch of my second pregnancy. I had cultivated a simplistic view of life as a believer, and thought God would protect me from anything bad happening. So, when I started to feel unwell and exhausted during the last month of my pregnancy, I was a bit scared. I was diagnosed as having pre-eclampsia, a condition that can cause the baby to stop growing properly, and the mother to become dangerously unwell if left untreated. I went to my baby shower two weeks before my due date, and to my horror I had so many bright spots in front of my eyes that I was struggling to see. I made it through the afternoon, trying to ignore it and rang my midwife as soon as I got home. She sent me directly to the hospital to be induced, as my condition had become too serious to safely continue with the pregnancy. I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room feeling so ill and exhausted, I had no idea how I was going to summon the strength for labour. It scared me to have to face such a monumental task from such weakness so I cried out to God to strengthen me and give me all I would need…..
During the last part of labour I reached a point where I so badly couldn’t cope that my mind checked out of my body. I stopped being aware of what was going on and it was at that point that fear really wrapped itself around me. I was pulled back from that place by Pete and my midwife urgently telling me I had to push. I gave it my all and delivered my little boy. I don’t remember it well, I was dazed, and when I sat up to move I lost an enormous amount of blood in a plate-sized clot. There followed several other problems with my body; it didn’t seem to be working right in many ways. Then the final straw — Simon was whisked away from me and taken to the neonatal ward because he was unwell. So many unforeseen problems and so much pain rocked my faith, but I pushed it all deep down inside to just get through the immediate situation.
I spent a week in the hospital with Simon, because of his health issues. My own seemed to have been dismissed. When I finally got home, I was so grateful to be reunited with my two-year-old and of course, Pete, and we attempted to forge a new family routine with Simon added in.
I was eating dinner a few days after returning home, when all of a sudden the room started spinning alarmingly. I excused myself and went to lie down, and rang the on-call midwife. She dismissed me as being too tired, but I was sure it was more, so Pete and I rang again the following day and I went back to the hospital. The symptoms were starting to wear off so I was diagnosed as having a migraine and sent home. When the same thing happened two more times that week, I didn’t call anyone, assuming it to be a migraine, though each time fear tightened its grip on me.
It was particularly bad after my third attack and my speech was slurred, my eyes uncoordinated, and I struggled to walk. My mum and sister came round to visit and were very alarmed, and I broke down in tears, finally expressing some of my fear. My health visitor chose that moment to arrive for a check up, took one look at me and rang for an ambulance.
I had suffered two TIA’s (transient ischaemic attacks – mini strokes) and a stroke that week, and my limited framework for God and suffering couldn’t possibly find a way to deal with what had happened. Over the weeks and months that followed I felt like I had been swallowed by a pitch-black hole that had no escape. I cried myself to sleep every night; I felt like a failure as a mother as I had to stop breastfeeding and couldn’t even do many of the bottle feeds due to my exhaustion and mobility problems caused by the stroke. The birth, the TIA’s and the stroke had left me feeling traumatised and full of questions for God. Where was He during the birth? Why didn’t He help me? Why did He let it happen? Where was He when I needed Him? I cried so many bitter tears as my view of God and His faithfulness lay shattered before me. But in the midst of so much uncertainty I never stopped talking to Him. I poured my heart out to Him day after day, night after night. Despite the questions, I still knew deep-down that He was good and that He was with me. He gave me a prophetic picture early on in that season of recovery that I clung to. It was an image of me in the darkness, no spot of light to walk towards. Then God’s hand came and held on to mine, and I was filled with an assurance that He knew the way forward, even if I didn’t. He would get me through; I was safe, even in the all-consuming darkness. This became my anchor and my hope — His hand holding mine.
Want to read more?
Hope Shouts Louder