MLO Knitting

Hope Deferred: Heart-Healing Reflections On Reproductive Loss by Nadine Pence Frantz and Mary T. Stimming is a moving piece on the problem of the suffering of infertility. It, however, is as unsatisfactory as any treatise on suffering that has been written.

I admit that I may be too deep in the trenches of the hurt and pain of infertility – sterility, even – to appreciate the reflective nature of the book. My feeling that the book was not all it could be was confirmed when I learned one of the editors was suffering from secondary infertility. Fairly or unfairly, in my mind, I kept hearing the phrase, “she got hers.”

I do not believe I can give a fair review of this book. I will say that until the section on science – way out of date – I found the theology sound and not overbearing. Much of what has been written for the popular Christian press tends to press the author’s interpretations rather than the need for reflection and prayer for the individual involved. Very little in this life is black and white.

I wanted to like this book. I did like the book until the misinformation on science – too often seen in all writings – came up in the final chapter.

Since there are so few books written from a liberal Christian perspective on the problem of infertility in the age of reproductive technology, I will give a cautious thumbs up on this book.