While I am always excited by a new Springs blog post, I particularly enjoyed the post a few months ago titled “Finding Solace in the Good News.” I always appreciate a good theme song for a life season, but it’s gotta be organic, you know? Since I, like that post’s author, was in recovery from endo surgery at the time, her piece felt timely indeed.

Now, a few months distant from surgery and hoping to conceive with renewed–and fragile–hope, I feel I’m entering new territory. As I sit with the season of Advent, Luke 3:4 (“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”) and its reference to Isaiah 40:3 (“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”) float around my mind. I would love to straighten out the tangled paths of my heart and orient myself toward God.

But to do that, I need to enter the wasteland and do some road construction. This can be tough work! I recently received three pregnancy announcements in as many days, plus there’s my shortsighted dream of celebrating parenthood this Christmas to put in perspective. I need a regular reminder that this wasteland journey is not just pointless wandering – God is accompanying me to a destination He can already see ahead.

This is where my new theme song comes in. As my husband and I roadtripped home from Thanksgiving, “Wasteland” by NEEDTOBREATHE came on as we drove. The song is so gentle but hits so hard. As I listened through the lens of navigating infertility and praying for a child, I knew I’d found my theme song for this season.

It’s a long song, so I’ll focus on some key lines. The first verse starts off with gentle music and dramatic lyrics:

I’m the first one in line to die when the cavalry comes.

Yeah, it feels like the great divide has already come.

There’s a battle with infertility. Our bodies and spirits are tested, and it can be an isolating experience. Sometimes, the social divide between mother and non-mother can seem unbridgeable. Though I do think embracing spiritual motherhood can ease this ache, it’s not the kind of thing that can be erased this side of the veil. 

The first verse continues:

Yeah, I’m wasting my way through days,

Losing youth along the way.

Ouch. The ticking of the biological clock can be a terrifying sound. And yet, the pre-chorus chimes in with a tender reminder from Romans 8:31:

Oh, if God is on my side,

Who can be against me?

I’ll jump ahead to verse three, which touches on a few more frequent experiences in a season of infertility:

All of these people I meet, it seems like they’re fine.

Yeah, in some ways I hope that they’re not and their hearts are like mine.

Yeah, it’s wrong when it seems like work

To belong, all I feel is hurt.

The more time I spend looking for the face of Christ in others, the more I see how broken and good people are. We belong to each other and to God, and it is such a joy to find kindred spirits to walk with us on the path of infertility and through life in general. Building that community takes a great deal of dedication and sometimes a thick skin, and I often find it awkward to enter new groups because there’s the inevitable, “Do you have kids?” question to contend with. Especially in Catholic circles, I feel pressured to justify my “No,” but I want to balance charity and advocacy with my own privacy. This dance often leaves me wrong-footed and hurt.

This is why I don’t take like-hearted friends for granted. But, as the pre-chorus following verse three reminds me, the truest Friend I need is already on my side. He knows what it is to be alone, abandoned, an outsider, and He will never leave me:

Oh, if God is on my side

Then who can be against me?

And that’s when the chorus kicks in for the second and last time:

Yeah, in this wasteland where I’m livin’

There is a crack in the door filled with light,

And it’s all that I need to get by.

Yeah, in this wasteland where I’m livin’

There is a crack in the door filled with light,

And it’s all that I need to shine.

Maybe this season of wasteland isn’t one of abundance in the ways I long for it to be. Maybe I am part of the “people in darkness” still waiting for the “great light” (Isaiah 9:2). Nevertheless, this Advent I find the hope to persevere in knowing that the light Our Lord has provided is sufficient for me (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9). His grace is enough to sustain. He is the one who cracks the door, emanates the light, and beckons me through the wasteland. I don’t know what I’ll find along this highway for God, but I know its final destination, and I’m grateful He accompanies me and fights for me on the way.

“ If God is for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31)

All Scripture quotes taken from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE).

Emily Herring lives with her husband John in Iowa, but she is a Hoosier at heart. She enjoys hiking, birding, writing funny stories for her friends, experimenting in the kitchen, and long talks over cups of tea. She blogs about the practical elements and supernatural significance of the domestic church at thepantingdoe.substack.com.