Sometimes I want to feel like I can talk out loud. I want to talk about what it’s like not being able to have more children. How years upon years can go by and nothing happens… and how bad that hurts. I want to talk about the lies that constantly swirl around about not being whole… the lie of being a failure for not being able to produce. Whenever my wife and I open up about where we are, people say the most insane/insensitive things:
“You should be quiet, you already have one.”
“You should focus more on others.”
“You should come up with a plan to adopt and be ready to start next week.”
Why can’t others just listen? Why can’t we mourn together? Why is it so hard to just pray and be?
Eric Schumacher wrote a post yesterday titled “Dads Hurt Too: A Father’s Memoir of Miscarriage“. Made me cry. Even though my wife and I haven’t experienced a miscarriage (that we know of… there are different types of miscarriages), I get where he is coming from. I’ve heard the same lies:
Comparison pointed a paw at our living children—three of them, then four, then five—and demanded, “What right have you to mourn a child you never knew, when you have all these?” Comparison thrust the faces of friends before my own—friends who could not conceive, friends without a living child, friends whose children died in the crib or in college—and mocked, “You mourn, but not as those who have no kids. Others are worse off; stifle your sorrow.”
There comes a point where you feel like you should just be silent. The hurt experienced from opening up and talking in community not worth the price.
- Why do we, as Christians, go silent when others who are hurting pour their hearts out?
- Why do we act like we have no power when we claim Jesus lives in us?
I feel like I should be able to talk, especially around fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and yet I can’t.
JohnnyBGamer 