31 Comments

1. 

   LynnCD May 7, 2015 Reply

   Yes. This reminds me of somewhere in the OT where God tells those without biological children, those who love Him, that He will give them a name better than sons and daughters. God has wonderful things in store for all His children!

2. 

   Amanda May 7, 2015 Reply

   This post made me cry, thank GOD he is throwing off this old baggage of misinterpreted scripture. A gift, not a reward, one of many gifts. He binds up the broken with the best gift of himself.

3. 

   Daniel May 7, 2015 Reply

   Thank you for sharing your story. It is sad to hear of the pain you have suffered. It is beautiful that you now experience peace and comfort others who are hurting. There are a lot of people wondering why God didn't give children, a spouse, or even a good spouse.
   To me, Mother's Day is about honoring the people in life that dry the tears and kiss the hurting knees. Kate, you are doing that for a lot of people this Mother's Day. Thank you.

   • 

     LynnCD May 7, 2015 Reply

     Yes!

4. 

   OMTSLP May 7, 2015 Reply

   Thank you. I needed this so much.

5. 

   MatthewS May 7, 2015 Reply

   Thank you for this eloquent and beautiful thought!

6. 

   Deb May 7, 2015 Reply

   We married knowing we likely would be barren as I had three female conditions that worked against pregnancy. God did bless us with two miracle children and had three miscarriages. I rejoiced in these miracles until we began doing Gothard seminars and joined ATI to train up our miracles. Suddenly I was not blessed and fruitful like I should be. I even had moms with their 7, 8 or 10 kids rudely put me down and deride me for not having faith and having more. From time our last miscarriage in 1988 until menopause set in two years ago we used no birth control. Getting out of ATI and realizing God is grace and the giver of many differnt good gifts. He sovereignly gives and leads us each individually in the path that is for our best eternal good and His glory. Thank you for writing something that shares God's gracious perspective on family size and His bestowing of a variety of gifts on each of us.

7. 

   Beth May 7, 2015 Reply

   Thank you for sharing your story. My husband and I also will not be able to have children, and its taken me a long time to accept that. Its ok though. We love our niece and nephew and our "adopted" nieces and nephews and we are quite happy living with our 3 "fur-babies" as well.
   God bless you...
   Beth

8. 

   Linn May 7, 2015 Reply

   I'm single, never married, but "mom" to many-nieces and nephew, children on two continents, and the students I work with through the school where I teach and my church. I have the privilege of being in touch with many of them into adulthood, and many of them seek me out for advice or to share their accomplishments. The most touching-"I want you to teach my child the way you taught me."
   
   The older I get, the more I am convinced that our true identity is only found in Christ. That helps us to accept where God places us, and also allows us to be a blessing to others. Gothard's misplaced glorification of marriage and childbearing does a real disservice to those of us who find ourselves in a different set of circumstances. But, Gothard is not "god" (thank goodness!), and God will bless in the lives of those who love Him.

9. 

   Lindsay S May 7, 2015 Reply

   Thank you so much for sharing your heart and encouraging words. My husband and I have been walking the road of infertility these last 9 years. Your words about God giving us good gifts based on who He has created us to be was just what I needed to hear.
   This is the first Mother's Day in 9 years that I am not fully dreading - mostly because I have the how of being a mother as we are in the process of adopting.

10. 

    LynnCD May 7, 2015 Reply

    When God said in Genesis that he would make a "helper" suitable for Adam, the word "ezer" denotes the help. God Himself describes Himself as an ezer to Israel in several places in the Old Testament. I will never forget the dust up when Carolyn Custis James compared the term "ezer" to "warrior" and then applied the term to Christian women.
    
    While many others and I do not agree with defining ezer as a warrior, or seeing it as a warrior in that passage of Genesis, the usage of the term does mean an ally, a strong help, and it is a word God uses to describe Himself in relation to Israel.
    
    While I don't agree with every item she has written on the term, one thing I appreciate from her writings and musings on "ezer" is that women collectively, should be seen as ezer(s) to all of humankind. IOW, a woman is not just an ezer if she is married. Or has children. If a believing woman is an ezer, it is wherever she is a strong help, or ally, to humanity. She doesn't have to wait until she is married to have that identity. Because that is what she is as a daughter of Eve.
    
    While I am not sure ezer-to-all-humanity is a proper interpretation of God's meaning in Genesis in THAT specific passage, I can still see ANY Christian woman, as a creation of God, taking that identity of ezer, in fulfilling whatever sacred calling God has given to her.
    
    This applies to the unmarried woman who mothers and nurtures other children and young adults, and it applies to the married woman who does not have children. I think Carolyn James' musings are worthy to consider here, in light of this post, as a very reasonable encouragement to all Christian women, in whatever situation they find themselves in.

11. 

    JPU May 7, 2015 Reply

    Thank you, thank you thank you. Much appreciation for this point of view.

12. 

    anon May 7, 2015 Reply

    This is so beautiful. Thank you.
    The God of the Bible wants your cup to run over with blessing and joy and love...I like to think it runs over so we can share with others and help fill their cups! God is love.
    I don't understand why. I'm still trying to accept that. But I know He is love...not the Gothard "god" of legalism and punishment. That is not what the Bible says.

13. 

    WendyA May 8, 2015 Reply

    One of my favourite scenes in all of C.S. Lewis's writings appears in The Great Divorce, when the Narrator witnesses the meeting of Sara Smith and The Tragedian/her husband. Sara is introduced as she walks to meet her husband, and the Narrator mistakenly identifies her as Mary Queen of Heaven, because she is attended by people and animals who are praising her and singing to her. He is told that she is "no one you would know." She is Sara Smith from Golders Green — a nobody on earth. Sara is exalted in heaven because "every boy who met her became her son and every girl her daughter ... and every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her, they became themselves."
    
    The first time I read that was shortly after my marriage ended and I realized that my dreams of a large family were probably not going to come true. My two (beloved and precious) sons would be all the children I would "mother" in the usual sense. And I determined that, as God gave me wisdom and grace, I would become a "Sara Smith," pouring out God's love upon all whom I met. Only God can say whether I have, or will, have any measure of success in this purpose, but it was such a comfort to me to think that there was a way to be a mother to a large family without actually bearing all the children myself.
    
    I am glad that God has revealed that there are other gifts, other possibilities, in His storeroom to convey His blessings to you. Thank you for sharing your wonderful and inspiring story!

    • 

      LynnCD May 8, 2015 Reply

      Wendy, I agree! I loved that episode in The Great Divorce.

    • 

      Don Rubottom May 11, 2015 Reply

      Wendy, thanks for being an example of faithfulness. I am sure God made us for such lovely love.

14. 

    Karen May 8, 2015 Reply

    Kate, you certainly have gotten a bitter taste of what so many godly women in the Bible also went through--Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, and, though not recorded in the Bible, from early Christian tradition we learn Mary, who became the mother of Jesus was the only child of parents, Anna and Joachim, who like Elizabeth and Zechariah, John the Baptist's parents, were barren into their later years with all the stigma this entailed until God answered their prayers and made them "Holy Ancestors of God", as they are known in the ancient orthodox Christian tradition. All these couples were distinguished in the Scriptures by their faithful and godly lives. Their culture, misinterpreting the commands and promises of God, pronounced them deficient, but God knew their hearts, and the Scriptures and Christian tradition proclaims what they truly were and are: righteous and blessed in extraordinary ways!
    
    The consummate Gift He has indeed given to us all who have placed faith in Him, and of which all other gifts are only expressions, is that of His own Presence residing within us remaking us in HIs image and causing us to grow up fully into Christ's likeness, and making us bear beautiful spiritual fruit--the fruit of the Holy Spirit--and to bear spiritual children for him in the lives of those He places around us. What more could we ask for? Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

15. 

    Gemma May 8, 2015 Reply

    This is a beautiful post.
    
    I always feel so sorry for [names redacted by moderator] when I think about the miscarriages they suffered... Going through a miscarriage is so heartbreaking. But considering the Gothard culture she was raised in, it makes me cringe to think she might feel like it was caused by her own sin, or that God did not bless their marriage. I can't even fathom the loss of identity and ruptured spirit women raised in ATI could experience when they cannot successfully conceive and/or give birth to multiple children... It is so disgusting that women are taught that their whole existence must be centred around childbearing. For all those ATI women out there who have felt the sting of this message, I am so sorry.

16. 

    Jayna May 9, 2015 Reply

    Kate,
    thank you for being brave and bold and sharing this. Even as a mother, Psalm 127 brings a lot of anxiety, not the intended joy, to my heart because of how it was so grossly misrepresented to us. Mother's Day is hard in so many ways. Sharing your story has and will continue to encourage so many others. Thank you for this gift. Keep writing, keep sharing, keep on keeping on.

17. 

    Don Rubottom May 11, 2015 Reply

    God's love for the barren is demonstrated in His Eternal Promise that surpasses earthly procreation. Consider Isaiah 49:
    "20 The children of your bereavement
    will yet say in your ears:
    ‘The place is too narrow for me;
    make room for me to dwell in.’
    21 Then you will say in your heart:
    ‘Who has borne me these?
    I was bereaved and barren,
    exiled and put away,
    but who has brought up these?
    Behold, I was left alone;
    from where have these come?’”
    22 Thus says the Lord God:
    “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,
    and raise my signal to the peoples;
    and they shall bring your sons in their arms,
    and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
    23 Kings shall be your foster fathers,
    and their queens your nursing mothers.
    With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,
    and lick the dust of your feet.
    Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”"
    
    We should all grieve how our pride has wounded such gentle spirits. And yet, the contraceptive culture that we have set ourselves against leads us to assume a closed heart in the 1/7 of our Christian family who are open to children but not bearing them. The contraceptive culture also hides lovelessness in marriage that in days gone by might have been apparent from infertility in the absence of easy contraception. In both cases, the barren and unloved, we have lacked compassion because we make assumptions that are not warranted by the facts. Rather than ignorantly assume, we should invest in lives so that we might know and bear one another's burdens.
    Add to these errors the natural religion/legalism that says, wrongly, that God uses barrenness to punish, and we have a perfect formula for maximizing pain and minimizing grace. May God forgive us and deliver us from our foolish ignorant pride.
    Our ministry is Reconciliation! May he bless the Church with a fruitfulness of spirit that is explainable only by a willing Bride in the arms of an Almighty, All Loving, All Wise Bridegroom. May we all become Sara Smith.

18. 

    rob war May 11, 2015 Reply

    Despite all the sentimental hype that surrounds Mother's day, there really seems to be under the surface too much pain and angst. For some, Mother's day is painful because of abuse or neglect suffered from their mother. For others, it is a difficult day because of lack of a mother due to death. And lastly, Mother's day is especially difficult do to infertility or singleness. One has to wonder sometimes if it is worth still promoting with all these issues and pain.

    • 

      Linn May 11, 2015 Reply

      I think we have to weigh this with the fact that we will all lose something in life. I have often been the single, childless woman on Mothers Day, the older single at a wedding, or the person who can't participate in a fun activity because of accessibility issues (I'm disabled and get around on a walker). But, as a child of God, I can be thankful for all the wonderful things He has done for me, starting with the fact that He loved me and gave Himself for me. We all experience some degree of loss in life, but trusting God with our pain can lead to a closer relationship with Him, and greater empathy for people who also have missing people in their lives.
      
      As a side note, I lost my own mother a few years back, and I miss her greatly on Mother's Day. But, the love and concern I have for others without mothers has grown, and I find that M-Day is a great opportunity to contact my "motherless" friends so that we can encourage each other.

19. 

    Shannon Wehr May 21, 2015 Reply

    This article doesn't make sense to me. Large families were encouraged and admired, but that did not denigrate those who were unable to have a large family or any children at all. i sat in audience at Knoxville when a young lady gave her testimony of having surgery that escalated into what the doctors saw as a necessary hysterectomy. Sadness about the inability to ever have children of her own, yes, but absolutely no judgment on her walk with God or spiritual maturity. In fact, she was set forth as a beautiful example of God's grace in suffering and her acceptance of His will. At a later conference, she spoke again this time of her engagement and coming marriage. Followers of Gothard may have denigrated the author of this article, but I did not see the kind of teaching she speaks of.

    • 

      LynnCD May 21, 2015 Reply

      Shannon, I have met many friendly people from ATI who would be very kind in these circumstances. I have also been admonished to not be suit minded by someone at HQ. The reason I was judged to be suit minded was because I heard about some favorable court ruling for IBLP and I asked what the issues were. That was it.
      
      My guess is the shopping mall exercise, the airport exercise, and such like fake "discernment" exercises primed the pump of this person's snap judgmental attitude toward me. I have many faults, but suing people isn't one of them.
      
      But I well remember Gothard's formal teaching is if you have a miscarriage it might be because you didn't give enough money to Church and ministries. While there are many good people who would not hurt a woman who had a miscarriage, I would not put it past many, indoctrinated in IBLP, to judge a woman for having some kind of sin in her life that led to her miscarriage.

    • 

      J.B. May 22, 2015 Reply

      Shannon,
      
      I think many of the most harmful forms of denigration in IBLP and ATI came not just from what was explicitly said, but also sometimes with what was left unsaid. One of the marks of a shame-based culture is to use coded language and set undefined or unclarified expectations that are often left unreferenced. In this particular case, Bill was pretty clear with his thoughts on the matter in the Basic Seminar. He said something to the effect of, "What do you think of when you hear 'typical American family'? You think of one dad, one mom, a boy, and a girl. We need to change that." Then, he went on to praise the virtues of raising up large armies of kids to take on the world. By raising up one type of family over another, Bill effectively (and underhandedly) told families with only two children, "You're not enough." Combine that with the cause-and-effect teachings of "you're in trouble because you must have sin in your life," and it's not too hard to see how some people wondered if there was something wrong with them because they couldn't reach the IBLP ideal.

20. 

    Amanda May 25, 2015 Reply

    Shannon, my mother miscarried when I was 10. It was tramatic. She nearly died. And one of her well meaning friends brought a leaflet by about miscarriage printed by IBLP. I read it, and remember wondering what my parents had done that was so terrible to have caused her to lose the baby. I don't remember the title, but I remember thinking that it must be true because it came from ATI/IBLP. A source I thought was trustworthy. It shook my child heart to the core. Bill also paraded these large families around as examples of what was Gods Best. So yes, I get what the writer is saying. "Large family- Gods Best". So damaging.

21. 

    Pam May 28, 2015 Reply

    I was indirectly involved in ATI/Gothard thinking via the church we attended. Birth control was labeled as sin by some; large families celebrated. I asked The Lord for direction and He brought the passage where Paul says he wishes everyone could be single like him in order to have more time for ministry. It struck me that although the Bible speaks of marriage and finding a wife as a good thing and also that children are good, it doesn't mean you can't purposely limit your family size if that's the way The Lord leads. My big struggle with Gothardism is that is can sound so sneakily spiritual.... There is enough pain for a person who wishes to but is unable to be a parent - spiritual abuse is a horrible thing to heap on that pain.

    • 

      Don Rubottom May 28, 2015 Reply

      Pam, there are many good reasons why the church rejected contraception until only a hundred years ago. Bill Gothard was a very poor, even perverted, messenger of the Gospel in this regard. Fruitfulness images God. I can't imagine engaging in evangelism but trying to limit the converts for any human reason. Respecting the awesome procreative power of our sexuality enough not to sterilize it has many Biblical reasons that Pope John Paul II explained in his Theology of the Body. That makes more Biblical sense to me than considering fruitfulness a burden on the joys of sex. But still, having as many as you possibly CAN (a twisted version of Gothard's teaching) is just one more form of idolatry, it misses the mark of comprehending God's loving nature in fruitfulness.

22. 

    anon June 9, 2015 Reply

    We got married at 29 and although not planning it, had our first child at 32. I always feel among my 'fertile myrtle' friends that I have to explain why I only have one child. I usually say because we married late. When I stopped using b/c at 35, I was not able to conceive. After years of fertility work I found out I had two problems and my husband had a low count as we both have autoimmune issues(celiac). Our child and I prayed for years for a sibling, and after an anointing at church at 42 I did conceive, only to miscarry at 3 months. Sometimes our prayers are answered but not in ways that we expect. We had prayed for a healthy perfect child who would always love the Lord. He is, but it is in heaven, not here. And this prayer granted still nourishes my faith.

23. 

    Bonnie July 6, 2015 Reply

    This post made me cry. Thank you!!

24. 

    H H May 19, 2023 Reply

    “God will give you a baby if he wants you to have one” and “infertility is God’s will” are two of the heartless things I heard constantly from stupid, cruel people as I had miscarriage after miscarriage. The week I had the last one a man in Philadelphia beat his daughter to death with a video game controller because she “nothered him” while he was playing. God decided he would make a better parent than me? I don’t think so!