Infertility and Miscarriage Pathway
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, scripture tells us. Wanting a child and then struggling through infertility or miscarriages can be a grief unlike any other. In the pain of longing, there can be doubts and questions, fears and unknowns. And unlike other types of suffering, this kind often goes unseen by the outside world. How can you hold fast to hope when you’re unsure if your desire will ever come to be? How can you trust God when your prayers seem to go unanswered? In this Infertility and Miscarriage Pathway, you’ll hear from those who asked those same questions in their struggle to have a child. No matter where you are in your journey towards parenthood, you’ll find hope in the waiting and comfort in the pain from those who have walked a similar road before you..
Podcast Episodes:
How do you engage with the Word of God when your world is falling apart? What does Scripture offer us in our deepest pain?
Pastor and author David Platt has built his life and ministry on the foundation of God’s Word—through his own personal struggles, challenges, and questions. As an adoptive father, David has witnessed firsthand the power of Scripture in guiding him as he shepherds the hearts of his children through trauma and hurt. As a pastor, he’s experienced the necessity of coming to the Bible with a heart longing for deeper intimacy with Jesus. And as a follower of Christ, he knows it is God’s Word that continually draws him into a fuller understanding of who God is. Out of this passion, David wrote How to Read the Bible: A Simple Guide to Deeper Intimacy with God, to help others engage Scripture in meaningful and transformative ways.
In this episode, Davey talks with David about the call to adoption and what it looks like to lovingly shepherd the hearts of hurting children, why Scripture is indispensable in the life of every believer, and how to respond when God feels absent in seasons of pain.
If you’ve ever wondered why Scripture matters—especially when you’re walking through suffering—this conversation will help you see how foundational God’s Word can be in revealing who He is and sustaining you in your most difficult moments.
How do you hold onto hope while processing new losses after past ones? How do you reconcile the deep suffering you experience in life with the goodness of God?
Ashley Opliger knows these questions well. After losing her daughter, Bridget, to stillbirth, she couldn’t imagine a greater pain. Years later, when her father was killed by a drunk driver, she found herself navigating a new wave of grief layered over the old. Yet, in the midst of heartbreak, Ashley discovered hope and purpose through Bridget’s Cradles, the nonprofit she founded to support families grieving the loss of an infant.
She has also authored Cradled in Hope: Trusting Jesus to Heal Your Heart as He Holds Your Baby in Heaven—a practical guide for mothers walking through similar sorrow. In her book, Ashley shares her story and offers compassionate guidance for finding healing and faith after loss.
In this episode, Davey sits down with Ashley to talk about making sense of what feels like senseless suffering, learning to surrender our pain to God, and holding the tension between mercy and justice when we’ve been deeply hurt by others’ actions.
If you’ve ever faced a new grief after a profound past loss, this conversation will remind you that God continues to cradle you in hope—even in the midst of each new pain that comes your way.
How do you begin to heal after facing every parent’s worst imaginable nightmare — the loss of a child? And how can a marriage withstand, and even grow, through such profound grief?
Amber Smith’s life appeared picture-perfect. Married to country music artist Granger Smith, she was a mother to three young children, living what many would consider a dream. But in an instant, that dream shattered. While playing outside with his siblings and father, Amber and Granger’s three-year-old son, River, was found unresponsive in the family’s pool. He later passed away. The heartbreak was unimaginable, and the path to healing—both individually and as a couple—was long, painful, and complex.
In the wake of their loss, Amber and Granger began a new journey—a calling toward ministry and helping others find hope in the midst of their pain. Yet, the road has been anything but easy.
Amber’s new book, The Girl on the Bathroom Floor: Held Together When Everything is Falling Apart, chronicles her journey of encountering God in the depths of grief and learning to take steps forward after unspeakable sorrow.
In this powerful conversation, Davey and Amber discuss the role of lament in processing pain, how to be present for others walking through deep suffering, and how to navigate the guilt that often follows tragedy.
If you or someone you love has experienced the loss of a child, this episode offers a message of hope—that even when everything feels like it’s falling apart, there is a God who holds you through the pain.
How do we hold on to hope when life is filled with pain and disappointment? What role can prayer play in our suffering as we learn to cling to hope?
Sally Breedlove and Willa Kane became friends through a shared commitment to prayer during a season marked by uncertainty. In 2020, as the world faced the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, they felt led to invite others into daily rhythms of prayer—and thus, Eighth Day Prayers was born. The name "Eighth Day" reflects the day of Jesus’ resurrection, symbolizing the invitation to live into the hope of Christ. What began as a simple practice during a global crisis grew into a ministry that continues through their three-book series, Eighth Day Prayers, which follows the liturgical calendar and invites readers into a life of rhythmic, intentional prayer.
Through their personal journeys of suffering—including the loss of a grandchild, the death of a parent by suicide, significant health diagnoses, and challenges in business—Sally and Willa have found prayer to be a steadying force, grounding them in hope and anchoring their walk with Jesus.
In this episode, Davey sits down with Sally and Willa to discuss the simplicity and depth of prayer, how it sustains us in seasons of deep pain, and why it remains a vital part of our spiritual formation.
If you’ve ever wrestled with the tension between hope and heartbreak, this conversation offers encouragement and perspective, reminding us that God can hold our hardest emotions and invites us into an honest, ongoing dialogue with Him through prayer.
How do we begin to help young children understand loss? What can we do to help little ones grieve while we are walking through it alongside them?
For author, speaker, and podcaster Annie F. Downs, these questions became real when her infant nephew, TJ, passed away from a severe medical condition less than two months after he was born. Wanting to help her sister, Tatum Green, and her young son, Sam, process through this loss, Annie did what she was uniquely gifted to do. She wrote Sam a book to help him as he tried to grasp the loss of his little brother. Once it was written, Annie and Tatum knew that this book needed to be offered to other families beyond theirs who were trying to figure out through how to walk young kids through unimaginable losses and so together, they created the final version, “Where did TJ Go? A Book for Kids on Grief and Loss”. In it, they help children ask the hard questions that can come when they lose someone they love and find hope through the Gospel.
In this honest conversation, Davey sits with Annie and Tatum to talk about how a loss impacts a whole family, the best ways we can show up for those we love in their grief, and what we learn about the mystery of God through the rawness of our struggles and questions.
If you or someone you love is trying to navigate how to guide a young child through loss, this episode will encourage you that while it can be hard and difficult, simply giving kids the space to ask tough questions and talk about what they are feeling is the first step in walking them through the pain of grief and finding hope along the way.
How do we make it through the difficult seasons that every marriage encounters? What does contentment look like when our circumstances aren't changing?
For musicians Cubbie Fink and Rebecca St. James, they could not have predicted the many twists and turns life would take on after they said, "I do." Through the personal pain of miscarriage and fertility struggles, the ups and downs of two successful music careers, and the revelation of Cubbie's childhood trauma that needed healing, Cubbie and Rebecca have experienced difficult winter seasons that tested their marriage and their faith. But it was through those seasons that they found an invitation to grow and trust God in their lives together. They wrote about it in their new book, Lasting Ever: Faith, Music, Family and Being Found by True Love, which shares the heartaches and triumphs that shaped their story as a couple.
In this episode, Davey sits down with Cubbie and Rebecca to discuss the different seasons that marriages often encounter, how to hold space for one another in pain, and why contentment is so important in the winters of our lives.
If you're walking through a difficult season in your marriage or in life, this conversation will encourage you that even when it feels dark, God is always there beside you and that every winter season is a reminder that spring is coming.
What do we do with all of our limitations? How do we begin to reframe the limits of our bodies and our lives in a way that allows God to use the boundary lines He has placed around us?
For speaker, author and mom of seven, Sara Hagerty, it was the many limits of her journey with infertility, motherhood, walking her kids through their own pain and grief after adoption, and the daily reminders of her finite ability to deal with all the challenges she was facing that led her to look at what God may be doing in her limitations. In her latest book, The Gift of Limitations: Finding Beauty in Your Boundaries, Sara explores how our limits may actually be the grace of God rather than a withholding of something better.
In this insightful conversation, Davey and Sara talk about what God may be doing in our limitations, how we can find the beauty in the small, and the power of naming our limits.
If you've ever found yourself discouraged by the very things that reveal your humanity, this episode will encourage you to reframe the way you see the boundaries in your life and find beauty in the gift of your God-given limitations.
How can you find laughter and joy when life is so unbearably difficult? Where is joy when pain and suffering seem to be a never ending part of life?
For author and podcaster Molly Stillman, learning to laugh has been balm to her soul in some of her greatest losses. Having lost her mother as a teen, inheriting a sizable inheritance only to lose it shortly after and finding herself in debt and then experiencing pregnancy losses later in life, Molly has walked through too many sorrows to count and yet, she has found a way to laugh through it all. As a trained comedian, Molly has seen the gift of humor when life feels too heavy and has used that gift to bring joy to others in the most difficult moments. Now a homesteader and ministry leader, her life has taken the most unexpected turns and yet she still can find laughter and joy in the midst of it. She writes about her story and life in her new book, If I Don't Laugh, I'll Cry: How Death, Debt, and Comedy Led to a Life of Faith, Farming, and Forgetting What I Came into This Room For.
In this conversation, Aubrey sits down with Molly to discuss what it is like to look a mother at such a crucial time in a young girl's life, how to tell your story in safe spaces, and the ways that shame can keep us from bringing to light the truth of what we've been through.
If you've ever wonder if it's okay to laugh when so much seems to be going wrong, this episode will encourage you that humor is a gift from God and one He often offers us in the moments of our pain to give us a little push forward towards joy and healing.
What do we do with the hard questions that arise from the pain we are feeling? How do we acknowledge our fears and our doubts while holding onto our faith?
For author Kristen LaValley, the process of moving from a formulaic faith that believed God wouldn't allow pain if she did all the right things into a genuine, messy belief and understanding of God came through several seasons of suffering. From losing her and her husband's ministry position and faith community to witnessing a murder, the loss of a baby and a very traumatic birth experience with her twins, Kristen had to untangle her belief in a God that neatly healed and fixed every pain into the true nature of who God was and how so often it is His presence that He offers us in our heartbreaks. Now, Kristen and her husband help others walking through questions in their faith and spiritual wounds by giving them the same space to ask and process that they received from others in their journey.
In this insightful conversation, Davey talks with Kristen about how what we believe about God shapes how we experience suffering, the way in which suffering shapes who we believe God to be and why wrestling is so important in moving from a transactional relationship with the Lord into a true and authentic one.
If you've ever struggled with questions about God's goodness in the seasons of your difficulties, this episode will help normalize the grappling and undoing we all have to do about our beliefs about God in order to learn who He truly is.
Have you ever wondered if you are still truly healing when the pain feels as fresh as the day you experienced a past loss or grief? How do we know that healing is happening as time moves forward, but our ache remains?
Davey Blackburn, Aubrey Sampson, and Eric Schumacher are not only hosts on the Nothing is Wasted podcast, but all have experienced their own seasons of deep grief, loss, trauma and tragedy. With pastoral wisdom and the heart of fellow sojourners in the valley, this episode is a unique roundtable conversation of what healing truly looks like at different points in our journey. Speaking from raw vulnerability, our Nothing is Wasted hosts share their own personal walk through pain and the often times messy, winding path towards healing.
In this conversation, Davey, Aubrey, and Eric tackle the role time plays in our pain, what to do when it feels as though God is absent in the days after loss, and how the journey towards healing is never a perfectly straight one.
If you are struggling to recognize whether or not healing is happening in your own life, this episode is a gentle comfort in knowing that hurt may remain for your days here on earth, but there is a hope beyond what you can see that will one day undo all the pain you've encountered.
How does the hope of the gospel apply in the midst of a miscarriage or season of infertility? Where can we find comfort when our desire for a child isn't being fulfilled?
So often this conversation is focused on the experience women have but silently suffering are the men who too face the grief and pain after pregnancy loss or infertility. Eric Schumacher, pastor and author, walked through several pregnancy losses with his wife and found himself wrestling with shame and sadness. It was his own feelings of sorrow and thinking that he didn't deserve the space to grieve that God used in his writing: Ours: Biblical Comfort for Men Grieving Miscarriage. Suffering can feel like punishment and it was in his own wrestling that Eric began to see how the gospel can meet us so deeply in our pain.
In this conversation, Davey and Eric discuss how gospel hope applies in every pain we endure, what scripture offers us in suffering, and why honesty is so important when we are hurting.
If you've ever wondered how the gospel can meet you in what you're facing, this episode is a reminder that the hope of Christ is available for us all in every circumstance and every type of loss.
What do you do when you feel disconnected from God in the middle of a hard season? How do you learn to trust Him when circumstances make you angry and confused?
For Emmanuel and Adrienne Threatt, this was the wrestling they navigated after experiencing multiple miscarriages over a period of time in which other losses seemed to come at them unrelentingly.
Trust can come easy when things are going our way and when our prayers are being answered the way we want, but learning to put your hope and faith in God after disappointment after disappointment can feel daunting.
For the Threatt's, this process of learning was arduous. It came through vulnerability and transparency with themselves, God and others. Sharing their journey through the valleys of miscarriage helped them to find purpose in the seemingly never-ending pain and helped them to be honest with the Lord as to what they were feeling in the midst of it.
Even after receiving the news that they were finally pregnant with triplets, there was still so much to work through with the Lord.
In this episode, Davey talks with the Threatt's about what to do with the feelings that God is far away from you in your pain, how to process anger towards the Lord and using worship as an act of faith in hard times.
The vulnerability and transparency the Threatt's share will encourage anyone walking through a painful season to continue to trust God, even when the path seems dark.
How do you grieve what never was? What does it look like when your grief is over a dream rather than a reality?
For Megan Smalley, learning to navigate the unseen grief and pain of infertility was difficult and at times, lonely. Megan experienced the whole range of emotions that came through her initial diagnosis of infertility to the arduous, sometimes discouraging path through IVF to the wrestlings that came after three miracle babies. At no point was her journey easy, but within it, God had important lessons and unending comfort to guide her through. And from that, she was able to in turn help others walking a similar path through an online community called The Infertility Sisterhood.
In this episode, Megan joins Davey to talk about learning to take difficult seasons step by step, why knowing the truth of God's Word matters in the midst of it and how community can help us along the way in our pain.
Whether infertility is part of your story or not, this conversation will teach you how to walk in your own hurt over the loss of a dream as well as how to help others through theirs.
What do you do when loss reveals more questions than answers? How do you navigate the doubts and anger that come when God doesn't answer a prayer or longing?
For Abbey Wedgeworth, finding beauty in the valley of miscarriage was no easy feat. It was through her wrestling in her pain, that she began to see the lessons her heart needed to learn, even though her mind knew the truth of God's Word.
While Abbey was well-versed in her knowledge of God's truth, the loss of a pregnancy brought a deeper understanding of the goodness of God in moments where she may not have fully felt it. And it was in one of her greatest pains that God brought forth an important and needed ministry for other women walking through a similar loss.
In this raw and honest episode, Davey and Abbey talk about what it looks like bring our honest questions to God, the ways suffering can teach us to depend on the Lord in a new way, and the humility pain and lament offer us.
You don't have to have experienced a miscarriage to glean from this rich conversation and find beauty in your own valley, whatever it may be.
How can you experience God's breakthrough when your circumstances seem to go from bad to worse? For Traci McCombs, that journey was a long and difficult one as she endured several miscarriages, a season of infertility and a cancer diagnosis while also facing the challenges of being a military spouse.
Just when she thought all hope was lost, God broke through in unexpected ways. In this conversation, Davey and Traci sit down to talk about what it can look like to learn to trust God instead of the outcome of our situation and how God's peace and love are available to us no matter what unfolds in our story.
Cameron and Karissa’s lives were changed in an instant, but that night was really only the tipping point in a long journey. Issues left unresolved for years had grown to their climax when Cameron confessed his affair to Karissa. But that night was also only the tip of the iceberg in their healing. The confession was a first step, but there was an unimaginable load of hard work between the two of them and the healing that they hoped for. In the second part of their conversation, Cameron and Karissa share some of the long road they walked to find healing and restoration on the other side of brokenness.
It’s easy to put people in ministry on a pedestal, to expect that they have their lives together. No one expects the people they see on stage on a Sunday to fall from grace. But a strong exterior life can sometimes only mask deeper problems, as Karissa Sprinkle found out when her husband Cameron walked into their home one night and made a confession that would change both of their lives forever. Cameron and Karissa’s journey hasn’t been easy, but it’s an incredible story of pain and healing, hopelessness and hope, failure and redemption. In the first part of their interview, Cameron and Karissa kick off our series on sexual betrayal by sharing some of the most painful parts of their story and how God was with them even then.
It’s hard enough when one challenge hits your life, but what if it’s not just one? Sometimes trials don’t come alone, and we can find ourselves walking through one difficult season after another. Every new circumstance brings new levels of pain and grief, and it can be hard to draw near to God when everything seems to be going wrong. This is exactly what Molly Huffman faced. After her mother’s death, a miscarriage, the loss of her newborn son, and a divorce, it seemed like the whole world was against her.
As the host of the popular podcast “The Happy Hour” and author of If You Only Knew, Jamie Ivey has had the opportunity to share her story with thousands of people across the world. It’s a powerful story, but like most of ours, it’s not always pretty. Jamie’s story is a moving testimony of failure and redemption, pain and healing, and God’s work through our messes. On this episode, Jamie sits down with Davey to talk about how God has taken the messy parts of her story and redeemed them for His message.
Andrew and Christy Bauman were like many expectant parents. As they neared the birth of their first child, they were filled with excitement. But their joy turned to anguish as their child was stillborn. Now, six years later, the Baumans are channeling their pain into helping others. With two more children and a third on the way, two therapy practices, and a number of books, Andrew and Christy are a testimony that God isn't afraid of our pain, and of the hope and healing that can come out of our laments.
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Have you found this Pathway helpful? Be sure to check out our other Pathways for more inspiring stories of hope in the face of tragedy, trauma and pain.
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How do you trust God in seasons of waiting? How do you testify to His faithfulness when the outcome isn’t what you hoped for?
Pastor and author DawnCheré Wilkerson never expected her long journey through infertility to become such a significant part of her story. Yet, as she found herself in an extended season of waiting, God invited her to share honestly about both the pain and the promises she discovered along the way. Though she eventually welcomed four children, DawnCheré encountered a unique beauty available only in seasons of anticipation—and learned that even in the wait, God continually reveals who He is. She captures this experience in her book, Slow Burn: The Work and Wonder of the Wait.
In this conversation, Davey sits down with DawnCheré to discuss how to remain tenderhearted as a leader, how to discern when to begin sharing your story, and how to recognize what God is forming in you during seasons of waiting.
If you’re in a chapter where your heart longs for something yet unseen, this episode will remind you that God is at work in every season—and that there is wonder woven into the wait.