Hope Deferred: Heart-Healing Reflections On Reproductive Loss

by Nadine Pence Frantz (Editor), Mary T. Stimming (Editor)

Infertility affects nearly 6.1 million women and 2.1 million married couples in the United States. Additionally, 25 percent of women of childbearing age will experience a miscarriage and one in 80 pregnancies will end in a stillbirth. In Hope Deferred, we hear the voices of five female scholars from a variety of Christian denominations--Church of the Brethren, Disciples of Christ, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic--as they share their very private stories of painful loss in the hope of bringing comfort and a theological understanding to those who have experienced reproductive loss.

Genres: Theology

129 pages, Paperback

First published May 27, 2005

Reviews

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up quite a while ago, when several of my friends were dealing with many of the issues addressed. I felt it was very well done. The writers are very clear in that they are writing from their own experience, recognizing the limits inherent. Each essay enmeshes the personal experieince with an attempt to make some theological sense of the same. I thought four out of the five essays were very successful.

I appreciated the fact that the book touched upon the tendency in our culture to privilege the biological role of a woman as a mother. I am not doing justice to this, I know. It's a personal thing, and I think that's why I am tripping over myself as I try to write about it. I do not have children, and I am realizing that I probably never will. That is at times painful, but what can be more painful is feeling imundated with the struggles and joys of others as they seek to be "a mom and..."

I also took unintended comfort from the book, as well. I am in the midst of a job search, currently unemployed. If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me "It's all part of God's plan..." I wouldn't have to worry about being unemployed. I really appreciated the authors' directness and honesty in putting out there just how unhelpful that is.