By: Laura Bennett
What is your hidden pain? Whether you’re worried about something, carrying an unseen health diagnosis or grieving past loss, so much can be beneath the surface of our lives that others are completely unaware of.
If you’re facing the battle of infertility, you’ll know it can be extremely lonely and isolating. It’s a pain no one can see – and that you might not want to talk about for fear of judgement or shame, or simply because it’s too personal a subject.
In the early 2000’s Sheridan Voysey and his wife Merryn were told they couldn’t conceive. A doctor’s appointment confirmed the worst about their possibilities of ever having a child, and a decade-long journey began to try and become parents by other means.
That quest ended with weariness, a decision to stay childless, and choices to make about how to process their faith in light of a dream unfulfilled and a lingering belief in the faithfulness of God.
“Sometimes the hardest part is knowing when to let go and move forward,” Sheridan said in our interview.
After writing about his experience in 2013’s Resurrection Year and the 2019 follow up The Making of Us, Sheridan’s now compiled insights from “the hidden tribe” of those facing childlessness in Praying Through Infertility, a 90-day devotional for men and women looking for guidance and community.
“God has recycled our wilderness experiences into redemptive help for each other,” Sheridan said.
“When one of those tribal members gets the gumption up to be able to share to somebody else that this is what they’re going through – and it so happens that that person is going through that as well – you go, ‘you too? I thought it was just me’.”
With almost 40 contributors from a variety of cultures and countries, the devotional spans the breadth of dynamics at play when you confront infertility, and the societal pressures that exist to be both married and have children.
“The pressure really is there to achieve in one of those two areas,” Sheridan said.
“Otherwise, we feel like we don’t have a self, we don’t have a sense in which we are somebody important and special.
“By getting a variety of people from different cultures to contribute, you find them tackling the issue in particular [ways] you’ve not raised.”
As hard as it can be to find hope in the midst of your circumstance, Sheridan encourages couples not to lose sight of the good in their stories and the power they carry.
“When you can mine [your] experiences, you may find that you are standing on gold,” Sheridan said.
“You’re so often looking to the hills thinking, ‘there’s going to be diamonds over there. I need to go up there’.
“Actually, you’re standing on gold.”
You may not arrive at a place where you become a parent, but Sheridan has found “the ultimate joy in life, contentment in life, is found in a relationship with God and going in deep with that”.
“That is able to be the foundation of which all [other] things can be built on.”
Article supplied with thanks to Hope Media.
Feature image: Book cover, supplied
About the Author: Laura Bennett is a media professional, broadcaster and writer from Sydney, Australia.