Katie Scheurmann discusses this question with us, "Are you a mom if you have no children in your house?"
Katie has written several books, including her nonfiction books, He Remembers the Barren (LL 2011; 2nd ed., EP 2017), Pew Sisters (CPH, 2013), and He Restores My Soul (EP, 2018), addressing the topic of suffering and the theology of the cross for the benefit of her sisters in Christ.
Aired 5.17.25
Ancr: This is I Choose Life News and Views sponsored by Indiana Right to Life and Right to Life of Northeast Indiana. Committed to defending innocent human life for all people of all ages. I Choose. Life News and Views is produced by Bot Radio Network in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Abigail: Welcome to I Choose Life News and Views.
This is Abigail Lorenzen. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you caught us last week, you know we started a new series this month, and that is about motherhood. Motherhood and May go together, right? It is tied together by this beautiful holiday that we call Mother's Day. Uh, and for some while, maybe still beautiful, it carries a lot of pain to it.
So we're looking at that pain. We're looking at the suffering that can go with it, but also the beauty, uh, that is still tied in, and some of the ways that people, mother that our culture doesn't readily recognize. Um, but that I'd like to change. So, Katie Schermann, uh, is on with us. She was here last week.
She's here this week as well. Katie, how you doing?
Katie: I'm really glad to be with you, Abby. Thanks for inviting me again. Thanks.
Abigail: If you missed Katie's episode last week, you can catch it on your favorite podcasting site, or I choose life.org under the radio tab. So Katie, let's talk about Mother's Day. We talked last episode about the general idea of motherhood and the idea of barrenness and how that is a cross that gets laid on people's shoulders.
And we're focusing on moms. We have another series coming next month that focuses on dads. So yes, this is very mom heavy. Dads stick around though. 'cause there's moms in your life who are dealing with this stuff. Or women in your life who would like to be moms who you have close contact with. So have a couple of things today, Katie, that we wanna hit.
So we left off last episode, beginning to talk in depth about Mother's Day and how a person can navigate that. And I think it does take some navigating, right in the best of situations. Someone would get their mom flowers for Mother's Day, say, happy Mother's Day mom, and go for a picnic and maybe do some gardening work and call it a day dust off their hands.
But often that's not how it looks.
Katie: Well, let's call Mother's Day what it is. Mother's Day is a secular holiday. That is an invitation for us to enter into a celebration of the mothers we've been given in our life. That's beautiful. Mm-hmm. It's beautiful to be given an invitation to celebrate, but the reality about Mother's Day is that it often is a trigger of deep pain for many women all across the spectrum of experiences. Not just the barren, not just the single, not just those who are grieving the deaths of their children, but also mothers who have living children who hurt them by dishonoring them or those who are post-abortive and have deep regrets about the children who are no longer living or those who have had mothers who did not serve them well.
So let's dig into that a little bit in more detail in just a moment. But first, let's just address then that Mother's Day also always is on a Sunday. Yes, it is. It's the second Sunday of every May, which means if you're a Christian Mother's Day is going to involve a public appearance with your church, family and churches out of love for mothers and for the gift of motherhood and the vocation of motherhood.
Churches often say yes to the invitation from the nation once you enter into a celebration of motherhood. Yes, we will. Yeah. We'll one up it. We will make church all about it, and that is well-intended. It's meant in love, but something to consider is that the church is a gathering of all of the body of Christ.
Regardless of what crosses have been put upon people's shoulders. So we don't get to have a Mother's Day Club that just goes to church together and celebrates what everybody's happy about. When we take Mother's Day and in some ways turn it into a holy day in the church, it is in the presence of those who have not been given the gift of a spouse, therefore, no children in their home. It is in front of married couples who God and his wisdom has withheld the gift of children, those who are trying to create a child through medical means and therefore, um, they're very aware of every month that they have a period. It's as if it's a funeral, and that couple is going to have a very hard time every second Sunday in May.
Those who are widowed or who have married late in life and no longer have the opportunity to, uh, welcome children through the womb. There are those who are in the middle of adoption processes or have been turned down three times by an agency, or those who have adopted but are, are stuck in some legal problems, or those who are happily, you know, families who've been made complete through adoption in their forever family. Not every person enters into Mother's Day at the finish line of their, uh, desire for their family life. And then we must look at the mothers. There are the mothers who are pregnant, and have not slept for weeks and have vomited for months, and really want anything, want a nap, rather than to have to breastfeed someone else.
Like there's just, there is the mother who's worn down. There is the mother who does not have a family who celebrates her. Mother's Day can be so painful for mothers of young children because unless the husband remembers to do something, nobody celebrates her that day. And then it's just a big, cruel feeling left out.
There are the mothers whose children have died. There are the mothers who've children have grown and then left the church and abandoned the faith. There are grandmothers who grieve for their, their barren daughters. There are those who would wish to be grandmothers, but their adult children are refusing the gift of children.
There are also those people who suffered at the hands of their mothers. What a downing, like, what a terrible conversation I'm having. I'm trying to break down for you, who all is in the pew. Does this mean that we should not celebrate mothers? No, but honestly, we should celebrate mothers every day. We should pray for them every day.
We should help them every day. We should support them every day, and certainly, let's pick a day to give flowers. But remember, when you give flowers to some women and not others, you're actually confessing that only some women are worthy of flowers. Or put another way, we're taking motherhood, which is a vocation given by God, and turning it into something that is celebrated by men.
Because if it's a vocation given by God, that means there are some to whom it is not given, and we can accidentally communicate that whatever vocations those non mothers have been given aren't worthy of carnations. So we just wanna be careful about the fact that Mother's Day is an invitation to celebrate.
But that calls into question, can people become mothers of their own volition? Or does God make people, mothers? And if God makes people, mothers, then we're celebrating or highlighting. Also, conversely, the fact that he's not made some people mothers. So what do we do about it? One, we have compassion for each other.
I am a barren woman, so I'm going to chastise and discipline my barren sisters for a second. My dear sisters, I know you hurt. I know that every Sunday it's hard to go to church, and I know that the second Sunday in May is an absolute shame fest, but take courage. You don't go to church because of anything other than that.
Our Lord has promised to meet you there, and he wants to feed you. He wants to feed you his body and blood. He wants to forgive your sins. He wants to give you courage. He wants you yet again. To have some practice at trusting in him when you have no strength yourself, and you know he is good at keeping his promis,e and you know that every time you're tempted not to go to church, it's the devil that there is something good for you there.
And let's just think through the worst case scenario, 'cause I've lived through them. So you're gonna walk up, somebody's gonna try to hand you a carnation, and just as they try to hand it to you, they're gonna snap it back and go, Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot you're not a mother. Oh. And yes, it happens. I wanna remind you, that is not the end of the world, and your bareness is not your identity.
It's your cross. You can look that person in the eye and have pity because that person is probably gonna regret that later. And what you can just do is because the Lord fills your cup to overflowing with his love, you can show mercy to that person and say, you're right. It hurts. Would you please pray for me?
And if you cry, you cry. What's so bad about that? Why is it so bad to show when something hurts? I know it's because you won't stop crying. I know. So then sit in the back and cry. I know you're afraid of what people are going to say to you. I know children are gonna come up to you and say, why don't you have children?
Well, sisters have courage. What an opportunity to say something true and good. Look at the child and say the loving thing. You're right. I don't, I desire them, but God has not seen fit to give me that gift. They may ask you why I. Don't be ashamed of the answer, say, I don't know, but I, it's been given to me to trust God and he knows, but I'm thankful you are in my life.
We are a part of the church. We're not supposed to hide. We're supposed to take part in it. If you hide, how will those children grow up? Understanding that some people, sometimes, God makes families of two. We don't wanna teach those children that a family of two is bad or less, or doesn't have value or worth in the church.
Remember, sometimes too, we're called upon to teach our peers, or maybe even people older than us, what it is to be barren. Yes, that's hard. And I'm sorry it is a part of your cross, but if we don't participate in the body of Christ, how will those dear people ever learn to be kinder? How will they ever learn to have the faith which God has given you?
You know that God gives the gift of children. Nobody knows it better than you. You know it. You're the one who prays and asks, and you know that he doesn't give sometimes. Well, sometimes that's so that other people can learn it too. So I wanna encourage you to go and be yourself, and it's not going to kill you.
In fact, it will make you stronger because you'll actually see who needs your love the most and your forgiveness the most, and then you go home and cry and just know that you're not alone. Pray to your Lord. Ask for his help and ask for his blessing. And then open your eyes 'cause you're, it's going to happen.
See it. It's just as you know, it's not always the blessing that we want. Also, you're going to be surprised at who rescues you that day. One time I'm a pastor's wife, probably good. I'm a pastor's wife, or I would probably go to church less. I have to go and that's good for me. That's good for me. One particular Mother's Day in my thirties, I think I was in a panic.
I could tell my body was changing and this really might not happen, and I just could not walk into the church and listen to everybody's else's suffering and expectations for me, because that's what's so hard about Mother's Day, is it brings out everybody else's expectations for you that you can't meet.
And I just thought, I cannot do it. I shouldn't have to do it. Why are people so mean? Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But. I'm a pastor's wife. Thanks be to God. And I walked into that church and there was a woman, a matron in the church. Very strong person, uh, very respected. She took one look at me and I looked at her in the narthex and she sometimes would talk to me at times and not always have the easiest words to say. So she was maybe I was a little afraid of because I couldn't always trust that she would greet me kindly. And that's not a criticism of her. It's just we all have different personalities. But she took one look at me that day. She didn't say a single word to me. She only opened her arms.
Abigail: Mm.
Katie: and I walked into her arms and I cried. She hugged me for a very long time, but it was a strong hug. It was not a pity hug. It was a, you are not alone, and yes, you should be here. She didn't try to answer my pain. She didn't try to speak it away.
She didn't try to make herself feel more comfortable. She just gave me a hug that said, this is a hard day for you. I see you. You're where you need to be. God rescues often through the people you don't expect. Another time I walked into the church kitchen because I couldn't handle it. I was so broken and sad and disappointed, and I felt that way every day in my bareness, but it was publicly on display because of who doesn't sit in my pew and I just was not handling it well. And an older bachelor in the congregation came into the kitchen and handed me a gift bag and he said, I made this candy for you. Oh, he didn't give candy to anybody else that day. And it was so obviously from the Lord. He will rescue you.
I can't promise you he's going to make you a mother, but I can promise you. That when you go to church where Christ promises to feed you and serve you, he will. I can't promise you that you won't be embarrassed. I can't promise you that you won't hurt and that you won't, um, have a hard memory. But I also know that those who wait on the Lord, the Lord rescues them.
Now I have also been blessed to go around and speak and meet a lot of women, and I've met a lot of women who have children who have grown up to abandon their families, to dishonor their mothers. And I think if you want one of the best things to do on Mother's Day, I. It's to peel your eyes from your own navel look up.
And instead of walking into that church in fear of like, who's gonna see me? What are people gonna say to me? Instead, open up your eyes and look around and say, who here needs a hug from me today?
Abigail: Hmm. Solidarity.
Katie: Yeah. Who here do I know has suffered in a way that's gonna be triggered on Mother's Day? And then just go be with them.
Be their sentinel, stand at their elbow, help them through all the conversations they're gonna have to have. I'm thinking particularly of a friend of mine whose child died last spring; Mother's Day is going to be awful. And they're probably going to have all kinds of people come up and say things to them that are not gonna be helpful.
Wouldn't it be a blessing to be somebody who just stands at her side all Sunday? Who sits and sings the hymns for her into her ears 'cause she won't be able to sing them that day. Maybe another option is instead of being afraid of Mother's Day or angry about Mother's Day, or Bitter about Mother's Day, why don't you see it for what it is?
It's just another opportunity for you to take care of people. We're so tempted to think about what we don't have or what we haven't been given or what we've lost, what relief our Lord gives us in his command to love others. I. We don't actually have to think about what we're missing. Instead, we can just go and take care of other people, and we're not gonna do it perfectly, and nobody's gonna do it perfectly for us.
But Mother's Day is for loving other people and saying thank you. Another thing is, I know there are people in your life who have mothered you. If that's your own birth mother or adoptive mother or foster mother, tell 'em, write a letter. Go sit with them in church or if it's a mother in the faith at your congregation, tell her Mother's Day doesn't have to be about you and your pain.
It can really be what it was originally intended to be. You can celebrate the people who have mothered you well. And may I remind you of your great mother, the church. In the church, you were birthed into salvation. And the mother, our mother, the church raises us in the faith through our pastors and through all the other congregants and the priesthood of all believers.
So go to church on Mother's Day and honor your mother, the church. Thank God that you, you know, whatever suffering you have, you have been forgiven of your sins. And be reminded, honor your mother on Mother's Day. Go to church.
Abigail: This is a good reminder for me as we walk into this. Katie, I bet you don't know this.
I had two children and then I had two miscarriages, and now I'm pregnant with a fifth. So Mother's Day carries some pain.
Katie: Oh, Abby and Abby, may I ask you then, when somebody neglects to remember your children, doesn't that make you feel so alone in your pain then?
Abigail: It reinforces what every mom fears, which is that her children will be forgotten.
Katie: That's a pretty powerful statement because then those of you who are afraid to ask somebody about the children who are no longer there, consider the fact that it's harder for the mother who's grieving for her children to be forgotten than for them to be remembered.
Abigail: Because there doesn't go a day where I don't think about the kids who are not in my house, right?
So, to bring it up, isn't bringing up something new that I haven't been thinking about. It's not like, oh, I didn't think about that in months. I haven't thought about Winterberry in months. No, go ahead and bring it up. Enter into my life. Yeah, because I miss both of these past two years. I miscarried right before Mother's Day, like within a month or two before Mother's Day.
No one said anything to me about it on Mother's Day, and it just feels like, oh my gosh, everybody forgot what I just went through.
Katie: And you don't get to forget.
Abigail: No Uhuh. And so even with my own children, who would ask, you know, they'll come up to me, they'll say, mommy, is there baby in your tummy yet? No. No, there's not.
Well, why not? Well, because you can't have babies any faster than God gives 'em to you. Mm-hmm. And it works on the church ladies too, who are poking their noses into very intimate places just to remind people. If you really wanted to know, I can share my husband and my schedule because you're asking intimate questions and I can give you intimate answers, but maybe better is just to remind you that you can't have children any faster than what God gives them to you.
Katie: Yeah.
Abigail: Because I think we do forget, like you say, we look at our hands and say, well, why can't my hands produce X, Y, or Z? Why can't my hands produce a child, which is looking to the created rather than the creator? Right. And like you said earlier too, really resonated with me that children are a gift so they can also be withheld, right?
Gifts do not have to be given, and you don't get to demand to know why a gift is given or why it's not, and you don't get to take a gift that's not given to you. We don't have a right to children. My children are not mine. I am a steward of their lives. I'm a steward of their time and my care. And so even with the children that I miscarried, I did my best as a steward of the time that I had with them.
And so, you know, you have these questions about, well, God, why didn't I get to keep my child? Well, first of all, they weren't mine. They were never mine to keep. They were given to me and then sort of required back from my hand, and so they were never mine to hold onto, and that helped a lot in my grief.
Katie: When you say this, Abby, it reminds me that motherhood is an act of raising children. We're not told for how long we raised them, but I thank God that you are Lily's mom and Winterberry’s mom, and that doesn't really change in life or death. And also, I really thank you for sharing with us the wonderful example of your children, because they knew how to comfort, and that was by not trying to say the right thing to you.
They weren't burdened with that thought. Hmm. It wasn't to make the situation go away or to make themselves comfortable. They just knew to greet it and call it what it is. This is awful, mom, you know? And to cry. May we all take a note about that in our, when we approach people in their suffering, that we don't need to say the right thing.
There's nothing right to say, right? Let it be what it is and acknowledge the giving, and the withholding, and the taking of life because the one who bears the cross has no other choice. But to acknowledge it. They don't get to pretend as if something's never happened or as if something's there that isn't.
So thanks be to God for the witness of your children to all of us.
Abigail: They handled that well. They did, and they continue to. Every ultrasound we go to now with this baby that I'm carrying, Ruthie says, I'm so glad that Baby Bo is still alive. Oh, and I say. Me too.
Katie: Yeah. That his body's still working. Mm-hmm. As you say that too, it reminds me for some reason, I am never offended when a child comes up to me and asks me if I'm pregnant.
It's their manner they really want to know. They're not asking because they're worried about anything. They just know that it happens. And I actually am always complimented 'cause it makes me feel like, oh, they recognize one, that I'm a woman, two, that I'm a married woman, and that actually children are a good gift.
I should be like in their eyes, why would a married woman not be pregnant? And I, it never offends me when they ask, and they, they don't bat an eye at the answer. For me, it was like, no, I, I want to be pregnant, but God and his wisdom has not made me a mother, and they're like, oh, and just like you. Well, why?
I don't know. His ways are not our ways, but please, if you would like to pray for me, I would love that. But of course, we pray that God's will be done and he knows what's best, whereas sometimes when adults come up and ask the same question, it terrifies me because I don't know how to please them. The answer the truth doesn't always comfort or please, adults.
Isn't that strange? It's because I don't know if we believe that God makes families of one or two.
Abigail: I think you're right there too, that we need to do a better job of recognizing that sometimes there are families of one or two and that that is also how God builds families. But also, you know so much of it too, Katie, here as we wrap up, is I think breaking people out of the formalities.
So, what is formal motherhood? Well, you birth children, you raise them in your home, and then they fly the coop and whatever. But that's not the bounds of motherhood. That's not the substance of motherhood. People can do that and do it very poorly, and you would not point to them and say, this is the ideal mother.
Hmm. There is so much more to motherhood than what the formalized version has become. And the same thing with families, right? What is a family, while there's a formal version, but oftentimes you can have that and not have the substance of a family. And so, yeah, I think human nature always wants to go back and formalize things, and it sacrifices substance.
Oftentimes, when it does that. You know, you see that in church tradition, even, right? We can formalize things inside the church and then lose the substance, and so yeah. Same thing with Mother's Day. Same thing with Father's Day, too. I mean, Father's Day is, maybe we should tackle hard too, because it gets talked about even less than Mother's Day does as far as young men or older men, fathering, isn't that telling about our culture?
Katie: About what we, who we're afraid of? Yeah. We seem not to be afraid that if we don't honor men well enough, it'll be, you know, whatever. It'll just pass. But if we don't handle Mother's Day, right, there could be a storm that should actually inform us a little bit about maybe how we've gotten away from the substance, and maybe gotten maybe a little bit steered the wrong direction by just feeling like we need to please people's expectations.
Abigail: Yeah. So it is good to look at, okay, what is the substance of things and how do we help communicate that on these days where, like you said, we're invited to celebrate things that are beautiful, things that are gifts from God.
Katie: And I should, if I may, I wanna clarify. Mm-hmm. I am not suggesting that the answer is that we do not celebrate the work of mothers.
Sure. Maybe it's that we want to get away from doing it in a way that somehow confesses that a mother deserves it. Because that's very hard on the mother who's ashamed of the work of her hands. It's that actually we just, let's honor the gift of motherhood and of mothering, but let's not put such pressure on the shoulders of the people whom God has blessed with children to be stewards of.
What pressure for all these moms to be, what? To be I, I don't know. To be something, they can never do anything perfectly. And especially what if women start to think, I couldn't keep the baby alive in my womb. I couldn't homeschool my children the way you could. What if we're just setting up women to compare themselves to some standard that.
Honestly, to a standard that has nothing to do with the good works God has prepared people to do. Yeah. And I think we forget that, that actually, maybe that's part of the answer, is that maybe we should turn toward just a, confessing yet again the truth, which is that God prepares the good works for us to do and he gives us the neighbor to serve.
So maybe we should just turn it also into a day of thankfulness that he gives us neighbors to serve. And maybe Mother's Day could be an opportunity to, for us to all talk openly about. Which neighbors we get to serve.
Abigail: I have little, little tiny neighbors that wake me up in the middle of the night.
Katie: Oh my. And I have big, tall neighbors who keep me awake at night from sleeping, and I'm sure have very large problems of their own. Oh, you know what? Being at a college is such a joy. Any church is the agony and the ecstasy because you're, you get a front row seat to people's joys and burdens. But one of the things I love about college ministry is our young adults are passionate and they are still being formed in how they approach people bearing crosses and they want truth and they want to serve.
And they want their mothers and fathers to teach them how to do it. And I thank God that my husband and I get to be mothers and fathers in the faith to them, because they have parents, many of them, most of them have parents already. And that's exactly how it should be. It's just they're on an extended stay away from their parents geographically.
Right. Yeah, it's a joy.
Abigail: Well, thank you so much, Katie, for joining us today and last week as well. Katie, why don't you give people your website again?
Katie: Sure. I'd love to hear from you or if you're interested in any of the books I've written, you know, on barness or on suffering and bearing crosses in general.
My website is katie scherumann. That's K-A-T-I-E-S-C-H-U-E-R-M-A-N n.com. Thank you for having me. You bless me so much and, and God bless you. And Baby Bo.
Ancr: You've been listening to. I Choose Life News and Views. If you have questions about this program or if you'd like to support the Fight for Life, please call 2 6 0 4 7 1 18 49 or go to i choose life.org because without the right to life, no other rights matter.
