unmasking infertility

She had twins. Beautiful little girls with tiny fingers and velvety skin. There was a time when she thought motherhood was forever lost to her and now daughters number 3 and 4 have joined the family.

I ache with the glory of it. God redeems and here is proof. Shimmering, exploding evidence of grace.

Holding the tiny bundles, I couldn’t help but remember almost eight years ago now, when news of another set of twins twisted my stomach. I sat alone and ached in pain at my sister-in-law’s ultrasound pictures. I cried at the feet of my God and said, Why does she receive the things I long for? 

His answer shook me to the core. I stared at the water and shivers danced my spine. The words were gentle, like a soft wave on the sand, and they reshaped me fully. “Would you rather I take her gift and give it to you?”

I recoiled at the picture of my selfish heart painted plain.

Never. I whispered and let the rocks fall from my hands. Ripples spread out to sea and something deep in me began to heal.

I will not yearn and reach for other’s stories. My brother’s twins were part of his redemption, not mine.

Then in Haiti. It was twin babies that were tossed into my arms. Malnourished, dirty babies. The mother, young and flippant, said to me, “Take them, I don’t need them.” I wanted to pull them tight to myself. I wanted to shake her silly. Instead, I gently washed and kissed seven-month -babies who were the size of newborns.

I wanted them to be the redemption of my pain. These beautiful children with brown eyes that lost their glaze and began to sparkle as their faces stretched into smiles over warm bottles of formula. But then I looked up at their father, standing there, now without a wife, offering his children not because he did not love them but because he did.

Before we left, when he offered them one last time, I turned the little boy in my arms to face him. “Look,” I said quietly, still aching but sure, “he knows you. He loves you. You are his papa.” As if on cue, the baby clapped his hands and smiled. “I could take him away but he would miss you. He needs you to be his father.”

The young man dripped tears and wrapped his son tight in his arms. He reached for his daughter and my husband let her go.

I will not reach and yearn for other’s stories. The babies were part of their father’s redemption, not mine. They were the means to make him stand tall and work hard. God was using them to mold and shape him into a father worth having.

I ache with the glory of it. For my brother. For this Haitian man. And now for my friend as well.

These twins are part of her story. And I will not long for her redemption– but I will delight in it with her. She bore and birthed two babies and I kiss them and squeeze their soft little toes and rejoice in a God who redeems every taste of sorrow.

And me? Can you not look back and see? God is still reshaping me. Unmasking the lies of infertility. Giving me glimpses of glory. And that, in itself, is redemption. 

I am in awe. And I wait in anticipation. God paints glorious masterpieces. The scarlet cord of redemption runs straight through history. And I trust that it will forever run through my life. 

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