It has been almost four years that I’ve been walking past that room in my house. 

I’m pretty sure we’ve all had that room in our homes –  the one we planned to use as the nursery. We likely hoped that room would quickly be filled with a tiny human to love and nurture. It seemed like the natural next step in a new Catholic marriage. Most of us have dreamt of this beautiful time in our lives when we can grow our families and start getting that room ready for our little one. 

However, as I continued on the path of infertility with only bloodwork and treatments on the horizon instead of a baby shower or gender reveal party, the ‘nursery room’ didn’t seem like a fitting name for that room anymore. I couldn’t bear walking past that room and seeing the changing table filled with stuffed animals I had collected and the empty rocking chair, or thinking about the drawers I had filled with all my dreams and hand-me-down baby clothes. I had to walk past that room every day and feel the ache and disappointment of what seemed like my shattered future. Eventually, I started closing that door, and asked my husband if we could rename it the ‘guest room.’ It was too painful to keep calling it something it wasn’t when I didn’t know how long it would take to have a child in that room.

 After having a discussion with other women at the Women at the Well Prayer Group, I decided it was no longer going to be a guest room or a catch-all with the door closed. While we don’t all need a nursery room in our homes, we all need a nourishing room. After encouraging another woman to create a nourishing room in her new home, I was inspired to change my room into just that. 

While many of us face the hard reality that we will never set up a nursery in our homes, we all need a relaxing place where we can create and be mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically rested – a space to rest in ourselves, our marriages, and in the Lord. We need a space where we can come to de-stress after our appointments or procedures or family gatherings, or even after going to church. We need a space we can come to and cry with our spouse. We need this space to rejuvenate us by spending time with our Lord. 

Even if you don’t have an extra room in your home, you can still dedicate a certain corner or chair as your nourishing space to relax, create, and pray. We all need a space to thrive in, whether that consists of painting, watering plants to watch new life grow, praying or reading a spiritual book to grow closer to our Creator, or spending quality time with our spouse. We may not all get to have a nursery in our homes, but we can all have a nourishing room in which to flourish, start a hobby, read the book we’ve been wanting to, hang the pictures we’ve been storing away or start a project we’ve been putting off. We can all cultivate a calm, refreshing space to come to after a hard day of questions or tests or difficult interactions with family. 

My nourishing room is the sunniest room in my house. While it’s a reminder of all I still don’t have, God’s goodness flows through every ray that shines through it. God’s love is shining down on me in that room. Turning the nursery into the nourishing room has helped me focus more on the roses despite the thorns on this heavy cross that I still carry. The Lord is there with me in that room and is with me as I carry my cross. He has not abandoned me in this room, but instead He turns pain into purpose and suffering into joy. May we also turn our pain from walking past that room into a purposeful space and our suffering of still not being where we want to be into a joyful space where we can be creative and thrive. It might not be the space you thought you’d have by now, but it just might become the space it is meant to be in this season of your life. A space for you to ponder and prosper, create, and feel nourished. A space where you can truly live.

Staci S. has been married to her husband Mark since 2022 and writes from Connecticut.