About Me

My photo
Hi. Welcome to my "taboo" blog. My name is Steph, and when I first started this, I was still in my thirties. In 2017, I switch decades! I am a Christian, so underlying everything I do and say is the Word of God, and the foundational truths I have learnt over the years. This doesn't mean I'm perfect - I am human. It just means I recognise I need God's help to live this life and try to live out His way, as best I can. So that's me in a nutshell. Thanks for taking the time to read through my blog, I hope you draw strength, hope or encouragement from what you read.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

That Awkward Moment When...

Hubby and I decided that after me being away in Israel, that we would go out for a walk and lunch together, before continuing with those separate jobs we have to do. So we went to one of our favourite local coffee houses, complete with pink walls and delicious food! Perfect!!

There were a number of people in the cafe with us, including a number of families with small children, who made a beeline for the play area in the corner of the cafe. Suddenly, without warning, or any inclination of what was about to happen, tears started to well up in my eyes and fall down my cheeks. Hubby was concerned, "What's wrong, love?" To be honest I have absolutely no idea where they came from or why I was crying over my chocolate-orange cake, but in this moment, my heart ached as I observed young children showing their parents bright, shiny toys they were enjoying playing with. 

There is no limit to when the grief strikes, if there was I'd have known to avoid going out for lunch at that time. Grief just happens. It just hits you at the most inopportune moment. I dared not look at any of the faces of the parents round me, as I made my way from our table in the corner of the cafe, to the safety of the private bathroom. On a weekend, families around the world pause together as they take a break from the working week and spend time with each other.... OK, so this may not always be a good thing, but to have had the choice to be a family, to watch my own children as they played, to offer my child new food to sample, to teach them new things, these are out of my grasp. At the moment, out of my future. And that is the grief of this day.


Father God, comfort Your daughters who long for their arms to be filled with the blessing of their own child, for the womb to receive the gift of the seed of life, for the family our hearts long to love. 

Thursday, January 29, 2015

When Injustice Reigns.

I try not to allow the news to wind me up, but every now and then a story appears which really does make my blood boil. Like today. Flicking through the news over my morning coffee, I was suddenly bombarded with the headline about an MP who is.... Wait for it.... Expecting a baby with a lesbian couple (I've decided I'm not going to bother to put a link to the story). I mean, seriously...! First of all, why was it considered newsworthy at all, and secondly, why are they in the situation they are in enjoying the BLESSING of becoming parents while I plod on from one month to the next trying to make sense of a dream for children which has yet to become a reality?

It's when this kind of situation smacks me isn't he face that I wonder how the Bible can say "children are a gift from God" and balance this with the wickedness of these kinds of situations and the apparent right people think that have to be parents. Nope....this is not a politically correct statement to make, but this is my real life! To raise a child with three parents?? This is not what God ordained when He created "family". A child needs a father and a mother. One of each. To claim otherwise is insanity and has taken the idea of parenthood away from children being a gift to children being an accessory of a successful life. And then we start to get talk about children being genetically modified to a specific parents requirement, the "designer baby". So then is the Bible still right when it says, "children are a gift from God"???

If so, where does that leave people like me, who have no choice BUT to leave it all in God's hands and wait for Him to bring the blessing my way, while at the same time, trying to not be bothered by reports like these. Where is the justice in this? Where is the hope in this? Where is God in this???


Father God, trying to make sense of the world and the way injustice seems to overnight You and Your word is difficult. Especially when it comes to my struggle to comprehend why I can't have a child and yet people who are spitting in Your face and mocking Your word don't have any problems. I don't understand it, I don't understand why You have allowed us to do this. I don't need to, I guess. But help me to not become so frustrated and irritated by these types of stories that they have the potential to make me bitter about my situation.... Or bitter toward You. I hold on to the promise that You have said, "children are a gift" from You, but don't understand why this gift hasn't been bestowed on me. Other gifts have, and I thank You for them. 

Turbulence...

I was recently on a flight home from Israel, following an amazing trip led by the Israeli Tourist Board. In the seats next to me were a couple of teenage girls who were flying for the first time. For the first three hours, we had a very smooth flight, and there was much movement throughout the cabin as families congregated in the aisle, sharing food and stories. These two girls were laughing and giggling together, very much enjoying their experience, as they stood next to their mothers seated in the seats behind us. As the cabin crew made their rounds for dinner, the plane suddenly dipped, and the girls giggled... more with hysteria than a genuine sense of fun and adventure! Then the plane repeated its turbulent manoeuvre, and they both collapsed back into their seats laughing while grabbing the others girls hands and looking at each other wide-eyed, trying to make sense of what was happening. They looked to their parents for reassurance the plane wasn't about to fall out of the sky, even though it felt like it was; they also checked across to see how I was reacting. For the record... after retrieving my stomach from the ceiling above me, I continued tap-tap-tapping on my laptop, as I was working on a report about the trip.

There are many times in life when we hit turbulence, when life suddenly takes an unexpected turn and we look to someone... anyone... for reassurance. It may be a situation others are experiencing at the same time and we watch how they respond; or we look to someone older, wiser and seek their assurance that what is happening is not as scary as it seems to be.

And then it hit me... Infertility is very much like that! As we grow up, we have dreams about meeting our Mr Right, getting married and having two, three, four... a football team... number of children, preferably one of each, whose names we chose while the teacher was out of the room with our friends. We imagine how they may look, taking the best bits of ourselves and the current guy we have our eyes on... there are even apps for merging the faces of you and your man in order to see how your baby might look. Yep... I'm serious!! (NEVER tried it, though!!) Then suddenly, we reach our mid-thirties and realise the dream hasn't quite worked out as it should have done, and we're surrounded by this thick fog of turbulence... faith, emotions, future plans and fear are all impacted. How on earth am I supposed to deal with this? How on earth am I supposed to go from the smoothness that life had once been, to suddenly dealing with this huge, dark, cloud hanging over my head, and over my future hope?

I looked to the Bible, to see how women in my ancestry had dealt with it. I looked to friends who had experienced the same turbulence, to see how they were handling it. I looked to the internet, to dig out what I could about what was happening, and the correct way to respond... sometimes I found assurance, other times I didn't.

Back to the flight, as the turbulence continued to affect the plane, our pilot switched on the seatbelt sign, and the flight attendant's voice calmly explained the situation we were encountering. 

My Pilot, is God. He knows the full extent of the turbulence in my life, and He is fully aware of what's ahead in my life. I may not be blessed with children right now, but I have so many other things around me that I am thankful for, and instead of looking at the difficulty of infertility and all that it brings, I need to make the choice to enjoy the life He has blessed me with. Oh, that's not to say the turbulence doesn't bother me - it does, a great deal. But I'm done with sitting in my seat, rocking with fear and staring out of the window to see how quickly the ground is rushing towards me before impact. And so... I continue with the tap-tap-tapping of living each day as best I can. Trying to rest in God's shalom instead of allowing hysteria to overwhelm me. I say trying.... because there are times when it seems much worse than other days... these are the days when the turbulence threatens to drown me the most... that's when I need God's shalom the most.


Father God, I pray that You will help me to rest in your shalom, because honestly.... I can't always! I pray that You would be with every woman who experiences the turbulence of insecurity and all that it brings: fear, insecurity, hopelessness, intimidation, anxiety etc... replacing this with a deep sense of stillness - Your shalom. Be the pilot through the fogginess and whatever Your plans for everyone of us who longs for a child of our own, be the hope of the future You have destined for us. Oh God, may we really rest in Your shalom. In Yeshua's name.