The other day, I received a text from a friend who has struggled with infertility. 

She was telling me about a recent family wedding where there had been many pregnancy announcements. 

“I still struggle so much to understand why, out of the dozens of cousins, we are the only ones that have struggled with fertility,” she wrote. 

The feeling resonated with me deeply. And odds are, you’ve had thoughts like that too.  

At some point on the infertility journey, most of us are tempted to compare ourselves to the couples around us. “Why them and not us? How come she has easily had six kids, and I still haven’t managed to have one?” 

Humans are storytelling creatures. We create narratives to make sense of the world around us. And we especially like to do that in the midst of suffering. We want to have a discernible reason for why we’re going through something tough, like infertility. If we can find the story—the why—it gives us a sense of control. 

That’s why, I think, it’s so easy to start looking around and desperately searching for a narrative to explain why we are suffering from infertility when others aren’t.  “God must love her more than me. I must just not be as good a woman as her, not as worthy to be a mother. Maybe there’s something wrong with our marriage and God is punishing us.” These are all thoughts that I have had at one point or another. 

For me, it’s been particularly hard watching one of my relatives have two beautiful children through IVF.

Why? I ask God. She’s doing the thing that You expressly tell us not to do. And she gets children? Is she just more suited to motherhood than I am? It seems hopelessly unfair. 

But here’s the thing. The longer I’ve carried the cross of infertility, the more I’ve realized that trying to decipher why some people are blessed with children while others aren’t is a path to despair. Once you let one of these comparing thoughts in, your mind starts to circle the drain endlessly. 

The truth is, most of us will never know this side of Heaven why God let us carry this cross. But one thing is for certain: it’s okay that we don’t know. 

As Christ tells us in Scripture, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7).  

We might not know why we’re suffering this way, but one thing we can be sure of: just because one couple has children does not mean that God loves you any less than them—or that His plans for you aren’t as good. 

We can hold on to that truth. We can let go of the need to know and still be okay.  

When I struggle with comparison, I often think about one of my favorite lines from the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. In The Horse and His Boy, one of the main protagonists asks Aslan a question about the fate of another character. And he replies: “Child, I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.”

The best thing we can do is to keep our eyes fixed on Christ and seek out His story for us. Because he does have a beautiful story for you, and it is unfolding right now.

If you struggle with asking, “Why them and not us?” I encourage you to take these lines from The Horse and His Boy to your prayer today. I pray that God will show you the beautiful story that He is writing just for you and your marriage. 

This post was written by an anonymous Springs in the Desert Contributor.