No Step Wasted

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8, NLT

MY CHURCH WAS a hard place to be while my husband and I went through infertility. All of a sudden on Sunday mornings there were pregnant women everywhere, and they were glowing. They were radiant. Their rounded bellies, and waddles, and scads of kids chasing after them were all I wanted. To be a mother. To start a family.

We had tried and tried for months upon months upon months. And each time a month came to an end, so did my spirit. Marked by menstruation, I was marked with grief. Every month began with a funeral. This ache for something I couldn’t have, it became king of my heart. The depression, anger, and bargaining that resulted from each loss became everything.

Infertility. It seems so counterintuitive to our design. So linked to the curse. Not only was childbearing cursed, but the ability to conceive was as well.

Countless times I cried and prayed on repeat. This was my plan. I journaled, saw doctors, ate chocolate, and felt overwhelmingly sad. But I prayed. I asked God to help my husband and me. And I didn’t know it then, but through prayer I was finding grace. I was overcoming.

If you find yourself with ache in your heart, let the tears fall. God tenderly collects them and stores them close to His heart. He longs for a broken world to be made right. The curse was not His plan. And what I’ve learned about God on the road to overcoming is that no step is wasted. No stretch of road is too long. He is doing something in and through and around us as we wait.

Part of that stretch of my journey was learning to wage war on my jealousy of women who had what I wanted. It was learning to surrender. It was learning to let God be God, and the road be what it was.

Sister, grace is a soft heart on the dark side of suffering. I can look back and see all kinds of things God was doing. Had I continued to harden my heart with envy and jealousy and anger, I would have missed what God was showing me.

Years later, we were finally able to conceive, which may sound sweet to some and sour to others. But let me be tender and clear. Grace looks amazing when you go to God in the struggle and in the grief. Even if you don’t know why you are walking this dark road. Even if you don’t receive the outcome your heart is crying out for. Even if everything still feels as broken as it ever was. God is tracking with your sorrows and collecting your tears. Our hearts are fertile ground in the middle of infertility.

GRACE REFLECTION: As you consider your own pain and loss, remember where your tears go. They are collected by God Himself. They do not go unnoticed. Ask God to help you trust Him with your tears.