Originally posted on Substack August 30, 2024. Adapted and reshared with permission.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!/ You know when I sit down and when I rise/ up; you discern my thoughts from afar./ You search out my path and my lying down,/ and are acquainted with all my ways./ Even before a word is on my tongue, behold,/ O Lord, you know it altogether. (Psalm 139:1-4)

My journey to motherhood did not go quite as I had planned. What I had always assumed would be a fairly straightforward process after getting married, became for my husband and me an extremely complex (I have been labeled a “medical mystery” more than once) and uncertain situation. Due to “unexplained infertility” despite a plethora of charting, treatments, taking of supplements, procedures, and surgeries, it became apparent early into my marriage that our likelihood of having biological children would be slim. As someone who has always wanted to be a mother and had very few career aspirations for myself, this news and reality brought me to my own rock bottom. I found myself becoming an angry, resentful, and cynical person, and I knew that if I allowed those feelings to go unchecked, I may not be able to find my way back to peace and acceptance, which ultimately lead to joy in the midst of, not despite, the cross.

As Catholics, my husband and I drew certain boundaries around what we were willing to do outside of the usual process to create our family. We ultimately decided to play squarely within the Catholic Church’s teachings regarding family planning, so at some point, I knew we had exhausted our available-to-us options, and we needed to grieve what most likely wouldn’t be.

You beset me behind and before, and lay/ your hand upon me./ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it/ is high, I cannot attain it./ Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where/ shall I flee from your presence?/ If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I/ make my bed in Sheol, you are there!/ If I take the wings of the morning and dwell/ in the uttermost parts of the sea,/ even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me./ If I say, “let only darkness cover me, and/ the light about me be night,”/ even the darkness is not dark to you, the / night is bright as the day; for darkness is as / light with you. (Psalm 139: 5-12)

Grief is absolutely not a linear process, and for me, dealing with what is mostly a hidden cross (most people by looking at you don’t know you’re struggling, in other words) brought an added layer of guilt surrounding my grief. Guilt, because infertility is not widely socially recognized as a form of loss, like your house burning down would be – in other words, my grief became disenfranchised. It took me over five years to fully flesh out my grief and come to a place of peace and acceptance about our situation, thus finding that joy and contentment I had lost. All this eventually happened through a lot of honest prayer (read: anger at God), finding the right kinds of support, and fully surrendering my dream of motherhood to God.

For you formed my inward parts, you/ knitted me together in my mother’s womb./ I praise you, for I am wondrously made./ Wonderful are your works! You know me/ right well;/ my frame was not hidden from you, when I/ was being made in secret, intricately/ wrought in the depths of the earth./ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance;/ in your book were written, every one of/ them, the days that were formed for me,/ when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139: 13-16)

Part of my grieving process meant coming to terms with my body and not seeing my body as a failure. While I feel like I have come to a place of acceptance and peace about our situation and actually see the good that has come from it at this point, the other thing about grief is that it can still hit you out of nowhere. And recently, I experienced a fresh wave of grief and felt especially upset with my body.

Back in June I was online shopping (LOL), and I was reminded of Psalm 139 (only God, right?). I knew immediately I needed to spend some time in prayer with that psalm. Recently, in my grappling (again) with the reality of our infertility, I have had a lot of sadness and anger come up. The anger was immediately directed to my body – why can’t my body do what it’s supposed to do? Why can’t I have biological children? Why, why, why…

Then, while I was shopping a last chance sale for candles online, Psalm 139 popped up as the inspiration behind one of the candles, and I knew the Lord was speaking directly to me. In Psalm 139:13-14 the Psalmist says, “For you formed my inward parts,/ …I praise you for I am wondrously made./ Wonderful are your works! You know me/ right well…” The Lord formed my inward parts, and he loves my body. He knows what he is about. I don’t have to be angry with my body because the Lord himself formed it and created it to be the way it is.

After being struck by that verse (it honestly felt almost like a physical blow), I felt sad that I had been angry with something the Lord designed, and I also felt a tender love. Despite the wonder of his design, the sadness about my infertility is not brushed aside by the Lord. He is with me in it because he knows me better than I know myself. The Lord can use anything – even a candle website – to show us his truth and his love.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O/ God! How vast is the sum of them!/ If I would count them, they are more than/ the sand. When I awake, I am still with you./ O that you would slay the wicked, O God,/ and that men of blood would depart from me,/ men who maliciously defy you, who lift/ themselves up against you for evil!/ Do I not hate them that hate you, O Lord?/ And do I not loathe them that rise up against you?/ I hate them with perfect hatred; I count/ them my enemies./ Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try/ me and know my thoughts!/ And see if there be any wicked way in/ me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:17-24)

Thank you, Lord, for giving me eyes to see and ears to hear. May I remember that you formed all my parts and love them more than I could ever fathom. I offer you this body of mine that you fashioned – may I come to see it as you do, despite its many imperfections and limitations: “Search me, O God, and know my heart!… and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Merideth Ochs is a wife and mother seeking the true, good, and beautiful. She loves coffee and books. You can find more of Merideth’s writing on her Substack: https://substack.com/@meridethochs.