Empty Womb, Aching Heart By Marlo M. Schalesky

Order Book

Reviewed by Allison Martin

Empty Womb, Aching Heart is a well crafted anthology of stories told by women and men struggling with infertility. Related in the first person, these are actual stories of all too familiar events - Mother's Day, a failed adoption, another useless round of infertility tests. This book faces head on the resultant impact that infertility can have on your faith and understanding of God in your life.

There are not a lot of unreal endings here, instead these are thoughtful accounts by people who have faced a world where their most heartfelt dream of a child may not come true. Each of these stories is a little gem, with its own hard won yet illuminating flash of understanding. To achieve true healing and return to trust in God, each person must come to terms with the lose of their desire and what God's love means to them.

Written for Christians, the stories and insights in Empty Womb, Aching Heart will help to heal those who have found their struggles with infertility to be a test of their faith and patience. This book is an excellent guidepost to those who are coming to terms with the acceptance of infertility in their lives.

An example quote from Empty Womb, Aching Heart:

Crying in the Diaper Aisle by Megan

As I drove home that day, a brightly colored ball bounced out in front of my car. I stopped as a little boy, not more than four years old, scampered after it. A little boy with his baseball cap on sideways and bright suspenders holding up his pants, a little boy so much like the son I longed to have. I blinked rapidly, fighting to hold back the tears. Then my own words cam back to me: Sometimes it's right to cry. Were those words true, even for me?

.. All this time I'd been fighting the tears ad telling myself I should trust God and be content, I hadn't allowed myself to grieve. I thought crying was a sign of weak faith, but maybe it was a sign of God's attempt to bring healing to my heart. If that were the case, I needed to stop fighting the grief and accept it, just as Jesus accepted it. I needed to allow the tears to cleanse me. I needed to switch to waterproof mascara.

These days I cry when I need to cry, without feeling guilty. And lately I've discovered that as I allow myself to fully experience grief, the tears come less often. I can look at the baby on a box of Huggies and I can listen to the children sing at church without having to dig in my purse for a tissue. But if the tears come, I don't try to stop them. I've come to realize that God understands my tears, and that they don't fall to the ground unnoticed.

Infertility is a hard road, a painful road. Sometimes tears are needed to smooth the way. Sometimes it's right to cry.

Order the Book from Amazon - Empty Womb, Aching Heart