"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty"The other night we went and talked with a couple friend of ours who struggled with infertility for 7 years! It was a great opportunity to really put our situation in perspective. Doctors told her right out that there was absolutely no way she would ever be pregnant. She had endometriosis so bad that all of her organs were practically glued together, they couldn't even perform the surgery to remove any because it was so bad. They went through failed procedure after failed procedure, including 5 IVF tries. Finally, on their last attempt IVF (due to running out of insurance coverage and the emotional toll) they received the wonderful news that they were pregnant, with twins! After everything, they kept their faith strong and their hopes high, they were determined to not give up.
Their story not only gave me hope for our situation, but also really gave me a good dose of perspective. Things could be a whole lot worse for us. But God has given us an opportunity to use this experience positively. We may never understand the reason why, but I know that God is using us. Some day, hopefully we'll be able to share our future success story with a young couple and encourage them to never give up hope.
I agree! Did you ask them what kept them going when they wanted to give up hope? When I was waiting on God to help dad get better, I refused to give up hope even though many people said that it wouldn't happen...I just kept hoping and praying reminding God that He didn't bring me this far to leave me. I also remember reminding Him that this problem wasn't too hard for Him to handle and that He helped a lot more people who were a lot worse off than dad was. I'm not going to give up hope here. I know you won't either.
ReplyDeleteHey you should start a small group in your church for people who struggle with fertility. That would be a good place to start. That way you can begin sharing your scrapbook and share what you've already learned through this process. Praying together couldn't hurt either.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've thought about that before but our church is so big that I don't know how to do that. I pretty sure there's a whole process you have to go through to start something.
ReplyDeleteStep number 1: tell one of the pastors this is what you would like to do and what do you need to do to start.
ReplyDeleteYou should have a pastor that is responsible for those. You may have to attend a class or two about being a small group leader. I think I remember reading something in your bulletin about a class like that. Then like DLynn said you'd have to get permission to have a class like that but I think that if you based it on a book like Hanna's Hope you would have no problems getting that approved. We started a small foster care group a different way. We just got the names of some foster parents who wanted to get together and be mentored. We started a "round table" group where we met for dinner informally. Just another idea to get started.
ReplyDelete