Infertility and Blessing: Part 2 - What We Learned

Last night Heather wrote a little bit about our story through the trial of infertility. I wanted to follow that up by listing some of the things that God taught us through infertility:

1. Infertility is Difficult
One of the things that surprised both of us was the difficulty of going through infertility, especially since we had both always desired to have children very strongly. The pain, disappointment, discouragement, hope, and alienation are all very poignant. If you know someone who is going through it, encourage them and empathize with them. It goes a long way.

2. God is in Control; We Are Not
While we could do all we could to try and have a baby, we were ultimately powerless to do so. God reminded us how weak and dependent we are and how powerful and sufficient He is.

3. Infertility was an Expression of God's Grace to us
Romans 8:32 says, "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?" We learned in this verse that all things really means all things, including trials. God was using this to sanctify us and make us more like Christ, and that was the specific good He wanted to bring out of it (Romans 8:28-29). He is more concerned about who we are than what we have.This led us to some particularly sweet times of thanksgiving and contentment in our trial.

4. Even Good Desires can be Idolatrous
While the desire to have children is indeed good and right, that desire is not to be elevated above God. At times we were both convicted of doing this very thing. God helped us to put the desire for a child in perspective.

5. Adoption Shows the Gospel
As we started to look into adoption, we were amazed at how adopting a completely helpless orphan is such a vivid picture of what God has done for us in Christ in graciously adopting us into His family based on no merit of our own. We began to get very excited about being able to do this for a child or children.

6. God's Will is Best
We began to affirm what Scripture teaches regarding God's perfect will in our specific situation. Many times we affirm God's sovereignty and other aspects of theology, but fail to see our lives and circumstances in light of them. We began to really believe that God had what was best in mind, and it seemed to be adoption (I'll let Heather finish the story when she posts again).