Surrogacy and Consequences

This is something a wrote a while back. I'm partial to it. I hope you like it, too.

She laughed, but it wasn't funny. After all, her friends on facebook had named her "#1 best mother (potential)." If only they knew. How many people had told her what a good mother she would make? She had stopped counting.

If they only knew that, for her, it would never happen. Eventually they would figure it out.

If only they knew the years she'd waited. If only they knew the plans she'd made – the thoughts of color schemes and whether the child would look more like her or him, the one she loved. . . the one she planned to raise children with. But she had let him down. If only they knew how all of her hopes had been dashed. She'd given up hoping for a passel of children. Even one seemed as far removed as the east is from the west.

She'd been listening to nothing but silence from God on this particular issue for more years than she cared to count.

So she laughed when she saw that rating and heard what others were saying about her, because the only other option was crying. And God had stopped hearing her tears.

But she knew, just like she knew she was to marry her love, that their home was not meant to be childless. So she began to consider other options. Who would help? Who could help? How to do this without waiting longer than she already had? After all, waiting had so far gotten her nowhere. She had waited longer than anyone should be required to wait.

Surrogacy. That was the solution. Even though she lived in Small Town, America, and even though she knew people were going to talk, she found someone willing to stand in for her – to do what her rebellious body refused.

Finally!!! She did what God refused to do for her, the one He supposedly loved. She and her love had a child. And she had made it happen. She had. No one else.

At first she knew nothing but bliss. Even the things that most mothers complain about were done with the joy of realizing a dream come true.

But as with all dreams, reality eventually intruded. The surrogate, the stand-in, still lived in Small Town, America, with them. In fact, the surrogate still lived in the same house with the woman and her love. Still needed help getting her feet back under her.

And the surrogate was not stupid. And she wanted to be more than a stand-in. This surrogate only had one thing that the woman did not – but it was the one thing the woman wanted more than all other things. It was the one thing the surrogate could throw in the woman's face. So she did. Repeatedly.

But the woman took it. She took it because of the child – the child that she knew was hers.

Then a miracle happened. A miracle the proportions of which meant that she captured the hearts of the news media for months. She had become pregnant. The woman, who had abandoned any amount of hope years earlier, was carrying a child. Only God could have made this happen.

Everyone was amazed. And she had never been so happy. Even though she had long ago given up hope, she realized that being a mother was something that God had been preparing her for her entire life.

That also meant it was decision time. Now that she had a "real" child, a substitute wasn't necessary. She kicked the surrogate (along with her attitude) and her child out of the house – knowing full well they could not support themselves.

She forgot. She neglected to consider. To her, the child was a substitute who couldn't compare to the real thing that she now had. To her love, it was his son. The surrogate and her son never moved back in. And their lives were never the same. Pretend as much as she wanted, their lives would forever be tainted by her actions.

By this point, it is probably obvious that this is the Biblical story of Sarah (the woman), Abraham (her love), Hagar (the surrogate), Ishmael (the substitute), and Isaac (the miracle), albeit with a few tweaks.

A couple of things have me thinking about this story this week. First of all, I was reading this book by Philip Yancey that talks about God's silences. Those stretches of time when it is dark. I was reading along, "totally" relating to these silences and their descriptions. Then I was figuratively smacked upside the head.

Sarah was 90 years old when she gave birth to Isaac. Forget modern medicine and 70-year-old women giving birth to twins. Roughly six thousand years ago, a 90-year-old woman gave birth. Imagine the years on her knees praying for such an occurrence. After all, she was probably married when she was in her mid-teens. Picture the story of Hannah without the "quick" results. Imagine the disappointment coming month after month, year after year – the roller coaster of emotions like doubt, fear, hope, inadequacy. Feeling like every time you turned around you let your husband down. Imagine the strain that would put on you, on your relationship with your spouse, on your faith in God. Really imagine that.

Then imagine you're 75 or 80 and someone visiting your husband tells him that you're going to have a baby. Tell me you wouldn't laugh. I know I would. But it wouldn't be funny, not really. But any tears you might have shed would have long since dried.

As the story goes, Sarah gets Hagar to sleep with Abraham, and they have Ishmael. But that wasn't God's answer. His answer was Isaac. More than a decade after a messenger told her that she would have a child, she still had nothing to show for it but a good laugh. But then it happened. Isaac happened, and the world has never been the same.

I complain about not being able to hear from God. I complain, wanting answers to burning questions. And they're valid questions.

But God's silence, his timing, is just as valid. I now think/understand/know that my reactions to His silence speak volumes more about me than they saying anything about Him. As with most things, apparently.

And Sarah's reaction – justifiable as it may seem – said much more about her than it ever could have about her God.

No, it doesn't provide the answer for what to do in the meantime. I'm not sure that this particular story is meant to tell us what to do while we wait, so much as it is a suggestion of what not to do.

I'll tell you this, though. It's nice to know I'm not the only one with unanswered desires and questions. It's nice to know there's not a time limit on miracles. And I love knowing that, whether it feels like it or not, God knows what's going on and he's working on orchestrating the world (even when it doesn't seem to be so).