Christine's blogs

I can’t forget the day at twenty years old when my surgeon walked into my hospital room, stood at the edge of my bed and announced, “If you want children, you’d better have them now.”

Still groggy from anesthesia, I looked at her and thought, You must be joking. But she wasn’t. She had just removed half of my endometriosis-ravaged ovaries. There was no such thing as suggesting egg freezing at the time to allow for pregnancy in the future.

During my previous college year, I had experienced months of the most sudden and horrific pain in my abdomen at the onset of my menstrual cycles. It brought me to a fetal position on my bed for days and twice I landed in the emergency room of a hospital.

The first ER doctor couldn’t give me answers to what was wrong with me. A few months later at the second ER, one of the doctors mentioned, “You might have endometriosis.” Yet he never explained any details of the condition to me. Nor had he let me know that it could lead to infertility. He did suggest that I see a gynecologist. But, as a broke college student who had no medical insurance plus a case of denial, I put such a visit off.

I despairingly concluded there was no one to blame but myself. Had I sought out a doctor sooner, my condition may have been diagnosed—and perhaps treated, or a necessary surgery not quite as extensive. I might not have actually experienced infertility, soaking my pillow many nights with tears.

The emotional pain was compounded by interactions with others who attended my church, many of whom I considered friends. Being told that I just didn’t have enough faith, or that there must be unconfessed sin in my life “blocking” pregnancy, wounded me deeply. Pregnant women in the congregation seemed to avoid me or abruptly stop smiling and rubbing their swollen bellies while talking to friends if I approached the group.

Yet some of my greatest pain was self-directed. It turned into a spiritual crisis. I began to tell myself lies that I was a failure, defective as a woman, considered unworthy by God to have kids. I chastised myself for all the years I saw as wasted time in my twenties and thirties before I accepted Christ into my heart. Now I was in my late thirties, married to a wonderful man but with a rapidly diminishing window of time to get pregnant—if at all possible. I questioned the child-bearing potential of my reproductive system seventeen years after my diagnosis. Intimacy with my husband was affected, baby making the only thing on my mind.

Infertility was an obstacle for me for many years in understanding my true identity in Christ as deeply loved and valuable. I let it rob me of gratitude, joy and peace. I also felt angry at God for what I thought was either punishment from Him or abandonment.      

It’s not possible to properly receive or give love or enjoy relationship with God or anyone else in such a state of self-condemnation, anger towards God and disappointment in people. Fortunately, God opened my eyes to self-forgiveness through His grace.

The word “grace” in the New Testament comes from the Greek word charis. It means undeserved blessing or kindness. Basically, it’s letting people, including ourselves, off the hook for offenses. It’s the essential launching pad to forgiveness that is genuine and recognizes God’s own gracious, undeserved favor upon us—even before we believed in Him. 

My decision to withhold self-forgiveness negated the core of my faith. It was tantamount to telling God that I was unforgivable, that Christ’s death on the cross and His forgiveness for the sins of all mankind throughout the ages was insufficient for me! This is serious unbelief that clears a path for the root of bitterness to take hold.

In her book, Living Beyond Your Feelings, Joyce Meyer states, “The longer we allow bitterness and resentment to grow and fester, the more of a problem they become and the harder it is to be free from them…the best thing to do…is to forgive quickly and completely. Not only does holding onto bitterness grieve the Holy Spirit, but it contaminates us and those we come into contact with.”

My husband and I were eventually led by God to international adoption, and a tremendous measure of healing and joy. Our son, from Vietnam, and our daughter, from China, are treasured gifts from God. But after receiving the desire of my heart, I had to field misguided comments and questions from others about the international adoptions of my children. Words from new acquaintances, and even complete strangers, such as “Don’t you have any of your own kids?” to “How much did you pay for her?” stung me and made me angry.

To these I learn to respond with the same grace I had come to extend to myself, and to use them as teaching moments about stereotypes and misconceptions concerning adoption.

The truth is, pain and hardship are part of life…touchstones of personal growth, if we allow it.

God doesn’t waste any of it, but uses it all to His and our own benefit, to refine us and to make us more Christ-like.

I wouldn’t change my life. I would do it all over again for the joy and deep gratitude I have for my internationally adopted children and my husband. He’s been with me through it all. God has helped him sustain me through many a dark day. For me, it’s as His Word in Psalm 113:9 says, “He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the LORD.”