INFERTILITY.. BARRENNESS.. CHILDLESSNESS, TO SOME JUST WORDS, TO OTHERS A SIMPLE DIAGNOSIS, BUT TO US THE WORDS LEAVE A GRIMACE ON OUR FACES AND A DEEP, DEEP, ACHE IN OUR SOULS. RATHER THAN BE SILENT, I HAVE FINALLY DECIDED TO TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO TURN THAT PAIN INTO A VOICE OF HOPE AND RELATING. THAT IF NOTHING ELSE, MIGHT GIVE SOMEONE OUT THERE A LITTLE COMFORT.
My name is Celeste LaDele Austin. I always dreamed of being a mom. Actually I never really “dreamed” even. Mostly, just assumed that I would be. Then when I met the man of my dreams and got married it made that wish even more tangible. After four miscarriages and seemingly a million tests I am in a totally new place about the whole subject. I still believe that God will give me and my wonderful husband a family one day, but for now I am stuck in the zone of hoping and waiting for that miracle to come true. The doctors can’t seem to answer the only question I hear daily and that is ‘why not me’? They don’t know the reason and they don’t have a solution but HE the master of my universe, and the author of this story, has my answers.Sounds trite, but it’s true. In the meantime, God has given me some hope through this message I am about to share with you and I hope it helps you too.

Isaiah 54:1-5 “Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband, says the LORD.

2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.4 “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.5 For your Maker is your husband—
the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.”
I was praying one day and really complaining to God that there just aren’t enough passages in the bible about this issue, at least not encouraging ones. And in my opinion, none on the topic of miscarriage, and like issues and He led me to this passage. Ever since, I really have felt encouraged by it. Literally it is talking about a nation but I think we can take truth from it and apply it to our situation too.
First it says the word, the dreaded word, “barren”. Then it specifies… “you who never BORE children”. Easy to just read right past that, like yes we know the definition. I think there is more to it than that. The author is drawing our attention to the fact that being in labor and bearing Children is not the only way to become a mother. He then brings our attention back to that fact when he says, “because, more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has children.”
1. THERE ARE BENEFITS:
When I first started going through this battle, I refused to entertain any thoughts about the benefits of NOT having children and would become furious at those who would attempt to encourage me in that way. People say the stupidest things when you are going through this. They mean well but are often unwise in the things that they say. I did not want to hear, “At least you can sleep in.” or “It least you still have a cute belly button”. Sure, it was true but it felt like betrayal of my dream to admit that there were benefits to not having my children.
 Here is the truth, for every ugly, bad thing that we go through God truly does have good things that he brings from and through those things. (Romans 8:28) So it is not wrong of us to see that He does bless this ache and turn this pain to GLORY.
 One of the Glories he brings out of this is a great opportunity. To funnel all that energy, and love, and nurturing that we desperately want to give our children into other people until and if he brings us that genetic child.

 It is true I can do things that I could not do if I had my own children. I can love more people… have more “Children” than those who are raising their own children. That is not a bad thing.
 So children, what do I mean by that? I believe that God has placed people in our lives for us to love and nurture. He calls us to them and we just know they are ours. We can disciple them, we can love them, we can lead them closer to God and encourage them in a way that we never could do if we had a house full.
2. THE ENEMY’S PLAN FOR MY FRUITLESSNESS:
The enemy, the robber of our souls tells us not to give that love away as if we will run out before our children get here. We sometimes funnel so much of our emotional and physical and spiritual energy into getting that baby here when really.. can we? I know for me I had to learn “I AM NOT IN CONTROL!!!” There is nothing that I can do to make this happen for us. If I keep pushing and trying to make it happen I only accomplish the opposite. I drive my husband crazy with worry for me, I tire myself out and stress out and honestly make it that much more likely that I will never be able to get pregnant and carry a healthy baby in that state anyway.
 Instead of listening to the enemy I choose to pour all of that love out to others. I choose to love and nurture those around me and give them all that energy and even share my pain with them because we women of every age need to know that whatever we go through we can thrive and grow and have Joy. That God can bring that person through it so I know that God can bring me through whatever trial I am facing. !!!
 The enemy hates that, he wants us mourning and crying.. which for the record THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH CRYING! You better … otherwise you can’t heal. But we gotta mourn and share, and mourn and share, and love and share and cry and on and on… not lock it all away. We won’t run out of love, God is love and he will give us as much as we pour out. We can’t fill the place the child holds with other people but we can spend our time loving instead of waste all our time simply waiting.
3 ENLARGE YOUR TENT!

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;”
 Open up your tent and let more people in. That is why I got involved in this website in the first place. Because I have a passion for seeing people have awesome marriages and because I want to reach out and have as many sisters as God wants to give me. I can learn from your story and you can learn from mine. I can help you not want to quit when you are close to giving up and you can help me! There are people in your life right now that would benefit from your story but you are not sharing it because maybe you were like me. I wanted to wait until I had my happy ending to share my story. I even wrote a book and didn’t publish it because I was waiting for the ending to say and THEN GOD BROUGHT A MIRACLE. I WAS THINKING that was the way to give people hope. But isn’t there more hope in knowing that I can have JOY in the trial that God is giving me peace and even satisfaction in the waiting and he can do that for them too.

 4: NO SHAME!!!
“Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.5 For your Maker is your husband—
the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.”
There is so much shame associated with this. We think we are so modern and independent and yet deep down we do not feel like real women unless we can choose to have children and do it well. I have news for you THERE IS NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU!!!! The enemy is such a liar and we feed his lies. We apologize to our families and husbands as if it is something that we have chosen. Some of us think we are being punished for sleeping with someone before marriage, others an abortion, others still take on the shame that it is because of their weight or health… the truth is in most cases it has nothing to do with anything that you are doing. I can tell you I heard that from at least five doctors before I ever thought it could be true. The God of our souls chose us to be his bride and he is in no way ashamed of us and we need to let go of that shame and dance again. WE need to see that God has called us to this for a purpose and start finding out what that is! WE can be FRUITFUL!!! This is my favorite part!!!
5. YOUR DESCENDANTS!!!
“your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.”
My descendants??? I am barren oh but I do have descendants!!! The people that God has given me who will spread the vision He gave me. Who will reproduce and make me a grandmother, and great grandmother by making babies and teaching them about the Lord and by reproducing in their spiritual lives too. I will have more children in more places than I could ever hope to count all because I opened my life, I shared my pain, and my hope, I gave myself away.
Maybe this answers your questions, maybe not but it sure helped me and I am striving everyday to see myself as fruitful not barren!