Thanksgiving. The holiday of family, pumpkin pie, good conversations, turkey, football, and colorful leaves. Tracing the history of this celebration, we find tales of pilgrims and natives rejoicing in a successful harvest. But what about those of us who don’t feel particularly fruitful this time around? 

Coming to Thanksgiving after a tough year presents a challenge. What is there to be thankful for when you’re still recovering from major surgery? Or when you’re finishing an exhausting round of blood tests? Or your period has just made its appearance for the umpteenth time? 

For those of us in a season of infertility, Thanksgiving might also mean watching siblings’ families grow while ours remains a club of two. Of running away from the dinner table to hide the tears that well up against our will. Of avoiding conversations with assorted aunts and uncles who ask those awkward questions about when we’ll start having kids. 

Just the thought of it can be overwhelming! 

But while acknowledging the grief and frustration we’re feeling, let’s remind ourselves that we’re beloved children of God. He does nothing without our good in mind. And despite the suffering we find ourselves in, we still have many reasons to thank Him. That’s a hard message to swallow, but the struggle to understand and accept God’s plan is nothing new. 

In fact, there’s a book of the Bible dedicated to this very topic: the Book of Habakkuk. This tiny book of only three chapters is squeezed between Nahum and Zephaniah in the Old Testament. It’s easy to miss when flipping through the Bible. But every word in Scripture is there for a reason. 

The prophet Habakkuk lived during a time of decadence in Israel. The Israelites had—once again—forsaken God. In a pattern seen throughout the Old Testament, foreign enemies invade Israel and chastise her for all her faults and failings. Habakkuk protests this divine justice:

“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongs and look upon trouble?” (Habakkuk 1:2-3)

 Or in modern parlance: “How is this fair?!?” 

The entire first chapter of Habakkuk follows the same relatable theme. We’ve all been in a place where we ask God why. Given that this is a canonical book of the Bible, I’d say God is okay with us crying out and asking for answers in our suffering. 

But this crying out and desire for answers should always happen in the context of prayerful listening as well. Habakkuk opens up that space, and in the second chapter we hear God’s reply.  God reassures Habakkuk that justice is coming: “If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:3)

When we listen for God’s answer, it’s not always what we want to hear. Yet faith invites us to be open and honest with God about where we’re struggling—just like Habakkuk. 

The third and final chapter is Habakkuk’s prayer in response to God’s reassurance. Habakkuk reflects on the great works of the Lord in the past. God chose Israel for a reason, led the people through the desert, and brought them to the Promised Land. While things seem to be going terribly at this point, Habakkuk perseveres in hope. I have found great consolation in the end of Habakkuk’s prayer:  

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like deer’s feet, he makes me tread upon my high places.”  (Habakkuk 3:17-19)

Habakkuk has no earthly sign of the fulfillment of God’s promise. On this path of infertility, Habakkuk’s wrestling with God is extremely relatable. We still look for signs of our own, only to be disappointed when pregnancy tests come back negative, or another medical diagnosis is added to the pile, or yet another friend announces they’re expecting. 

But Habakkuk does not give up—and neither should we. 

This Old Testament prophet’s confident hope challenges and inspires us to deepen our own trust in God, even when we have no harvest. Especially when it seems we have no harvest. For it’s here, in the desert, that the seeds of faith are planted. 

God is drawing our hearts to the greatest possible gift: His love. St. Cyprian reflects on Habakkuk’s description of sufferings, writing, “What is this to Christians? What to God’s servants whom paradise is inviting, whom all the grace and all the abundance of the kingdom of heaven is waiting for?” (See full quote here.)

As Christians, we have a hope that Habakkuk could only vaguely dream of. Today, we know that Jesus’ Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection answered all the promises of the Old Testament. We have Christ’s redeeming sacrifice and the grace of the sacraments to strengthen us when our vines fail and fig trees wither. 

We may not have children around our table like young olive shoots, but even if we did, our mission would still be to get to Heaven. That goal has been the same from Habakkuk in Old Testament times to St. Cyprian in the 200s to us today in 2024. 

The dead olive tree and fallow field are still God’s Creation. He knows the times and seasons better than us. It took hundreds of years for his promise to Habakkuk to be fulfilled—yet in the fullness of time, Jesus came. 

This Thanksgiving, let’s renew our trust and thank God for the gift of faith. The faith that He is currently planting, watering, and nurturing in the depths of our hearts. We may feel the growing pains as we ache for other gifts this holiday season. But I pray that your faith, like that of Habakkuk’s, will bear much fruit in this life and the next. 

Riley and her husband Josh were married in 2020 and live in Washington, DC. She enjoys journaling, playing Scrabble, spending time in Adoration, hanging out with family, and taking care of her inordinate number of house plants.