An Empty Womb and the Savior’s Love

Catherine Rackley
May 10
7 min read

“You will never bear children naturally,” the doctor said to us. My eyebrows raised as I noticed a high-pitch ringing sound developing in my ears. I couldn’t push down the tears that began to well up in the corners of my eyes. My chest tightened, and I noticed it was rising and falling faster than it normally did. My mind drifted out of the sterile medical room. “What did he just say to us?” was the thought bouncing confusedly around my brain. I gently shook my head and tried to re-engage with what the doctor was saying to my husband and I. “He didn’t just say that, I know I must have misheard him,” I thought to myself. I asked him to repeat himself just to be sure I wasn’t making all of this up. “You two will never bear children naturally,” he said again as he scooted the tissue box closer to the edge of the counter, stood up, and gently closed the door behind him. He knew we needed a minute alone - it was probably the shell-shocked look we were both wearing on our faces and the crocodile-sized tears streaming down our cheeks that gave him the cue to step out for a minute so that we could be alone.

We knew pregnancy was delayed in coming to us, but this was not what we expected to hear that day at the urologist's office. My husband felt like it was all his fault.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;

you formed me in my mother’s womb.

I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!

Body and soul, I am marvelously made!

I worship in adoration—what a creation!

You know me inside and out,

you know every bone in my body;

You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,

how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;

all the stages of my life were spread out before you,

The days of my life all prepared

before I’d even lived one day

Psalm 139:13-16, MSG

You see, as the Lord knit my husband’s body together in his mother’s womb, he left a piece that is normally there out, not by mistake but in His divine design and will for him. My husband and I could have never known that this infertility was stagefront in our lives until we started trying to conceive a child. Truth be told, I was never one of those girls who was eager to bear multiple children. I really love kids, but I had always day-dreamed of motherhood greeting me through the arms of adoption. That always had been my first choice (God’s providence?). But, when I was told biological motherhood was no longer a natural option for me, I began to want it more than anything.

But God...

God had other plans for me. He is the author of my story. And I believe, with all of my heart, that He writes good stories because the more I learn about this mighty, cosmic Author, the more I trust Him.

And God has good plans for you, dear sister. He is doing something good in your heartache. He is not a God who withholds blessings from his beloved children. He is authoring a good story.

Will we trust Him?

That July day in the urologist's office was nearly 13 years ago. That hot, summer day was the 2-year anniversary of my last cancer treatment. I was diagnosed with lymphoma as a newlywed. That day in the urologist's office was the exact day that my oncologist told my husband and I that we had the green light to start trying to conceive a child. That date was significant in my spiritual walk. It was a secret spot in my heart between me and the Lord. It was intimate to me. I had tucked that day away as “freedom day” to get my independence back from the dark valley of cancer that had plagued our home for the previous 2 years. To receive the heart-wrenching news that we would not conceive on my “freedom day” felt like a betrayal by the Lord. What I had expected to be a celebration day - my freedom day - our green-light day for a brighter future ahead - became a day of cursing.

Why Lord? Where are you, Lord? Are you good to me, Lord?

Through suffering the Lord has taught me this invaluable lesson in my walk of trust with Him: I can ask him, “why, Lord?” (he is secure enough for my honest confusion poured out at His feet) and maybe I’ll receive an answer.

But option 2, and the better option, is this:

I can choose to sink my teeth deep into the character of who God is, and therefore not need my “why” answered because I know “the Who” behind the why and therefore I don’t even need to know His reasoning any longer.

Is your womb empty and your heart hungry today? Does the grief of this loneliness threaten to overtake you? I know the nausea of heartache, but not gestation, that can blind-side you at a baby shower. I know the fatigue of grief, not gestation, that can wash over you as you see a beloved friend breastfeeding her newborn. I know the awkward tears of a broken heart, not pregnancy hormones, that can flood you as you endure the birthing stories of ladies at a church women’s social.

You are not alone. God saw Hagar in the desert after Sarah mistreated her (Genesis 16). God sees you too, dear sister. El Roi, the God who sees, catches every tear you cry and saves it in a bottle (Psalm 56:8). El Roi is also Emmanuel, dear sister, God with us. He enters your pain and holds you as you cry. He is for you. He will forever chase you with his goodness and mercy (Psalm 23:6).

Will we trust Him?

Dear sister, as someone who’s been there, I want to remind you with my whole heart today:

You are not alone.

You are not forgotten.

You are not cursed.

Maybe God will heal our bodies. But maybe, just maybe, the real healing we are longing for is happening right now in the growing girth of our hearts as we walk hand-in-hand with Him through this valley.

Oh God, show us yourself as Healer.

You never get over the pain of infertility, it just shifts the more mileage you cover in it, hand-in-hand, with the very God who you know could change it.

Maybe, for you, like me, the more you contemplate your empty womb, the more you realize that it's not even really about pregnancy. For me, I wrestle with knowing that God could heal my situation and despite decades of asking Him to He hasn't done it. Can you relate?

Will we trust Him?

Show us yourself as Healer, God. Let us experience YOU, God.

Crawling through the dirt of an empty womb for months, years, even decades can make us know the Father in a radically deeper way than if we traversed the same mileage on the mountaintop of dreams fulfilled. It's not about mileage, it's about an understanding of who God is and His deep, abiding love for us.

Maybe He is fulfilling our deepest dreams we don’t even realize? Could it be?

He is trustworthy.

Calvary testifies. Tim Keller once said, “Jesus was actually abandoned so that we only feel abandoned.” Jesus came, at tremendous personal cost to Himself and God the Father. He could have left us alone in our infertility, but He wanted to be with you in it. The lonely ache of your empty womb is being tenderly held by the victorious declaration of the empty tomb.

God is doing something glorious.

Will we trust Him?

God, help us to experience you as Healer. Not just to know your healing but to know You.

Sister, are you traveling the rocky, jagged-edge, lonely road of infertility? God sees you. Cry into His chest and believe, beside me, that He is doing something good here. He loves you. He is not withholding good from you. You can trust Him.

…..And, on the days you feel like you can’t, cry into His chest and feel His strong arms around you holding you in your grief.

Father, show us yourself as Healer. In Jesus' name, Amen.