There was a time in my infertility journey when I would hold my breath every time I logged into my social media accounts. I dreaded the all too familiar way my heart would drop whenever a new pregnancy announcement popped into my feed. The reaction came quickly and sharply before I could filter it – a hard punch of pain, followed by a slowly building jealousy. Always, it was rounded out by shame – HOW could I feel such ugly feelings in light of new life? What is WRONG with me

To All Who Have Been with The Fruitful Hollow Since the Beginning and Anyone Just Stumbling Upon Our Ministry, the deepest and most affectionate welcome. My name is CJ and I am humbled to greet you as the new director of The Fruitful Hollow after the remarkable 5 years our ministry has spent under Lauren, our fearless first director. I would like to take a brief moment to introduce myself and share a little about the journey that led me to writing this. I was born with Turner

Can you believe it’s the last day of 2025?! Today feels like the perfect time to share this news with you. I come with some news and a heart full of joy, gratitude, peace and hope! It is time for me to pass on the torch as the director of The Fruitful Hollow.  If you’ve been around since our humble beginnings, you probably know the whirlwind story of how we got started. God hit me on the head with the idea of this ministry after I had been yelling at him while I was driving.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)  My husband and I went through multiple seasons of awaiting. Awaiting every month's pregnancy test, hoping against hope for those two lines. Awaiting the results of endless blood draws and other medical tests to manage and resolve my hormonal imbalance. Awaiting my surgery to better understand why we had not been able to conceive after a miscarriage. Awaiting our Green Card

O Holy night! The stars are brightly shining What if my stars seem so dim and far away Lord? When others seem to rest constantly in Your light and love?  It is the night of our dear Savior's birth Birth. The dreaded word. On a holiday that can wound more than heal for me and for so many others. The little stockings never hung on the wall. The excited pitter patter never reaching my ears.  Long lay the world in sin and error pining What was my sin? Our sin? What do I have to d

Awaiting : to wait for; expect; look for. It is also expecting or looking forward to something, usually with a sense of urgency or excitement. Waiting , on the other hand, is more neutral; simply staying in one place or delaying action until a particular time.  We are now approaching the second Sunday of advent. Are you awaiting  the birth of Jesus or just waiting  for it to come around? Are you looking forward to His coming with a sense of urgency and excitement or are you f

When the Fruitful Hollow team was planning for this Advent season, one word kept coming to mind: “awaiting”. Merriam-Webster has a captivating definition listed: “to remain in abeyance until”. Abeyance: “a state of temporary inactivity: suspension ”. Each week in Advent we will dive deep into the abeyance. Perhaps many of us are intimately familiar with waiting. I’d like you to embrace the suspension in the upcoming weeks and experience the joy that Christmas brings when the

Year seven looks nothing like I was told it would. By now, according to the theology I grew up with, this should be over. God should have answered. His timing should have been perfect. The story should have reached its redemptive conclusion: the testimony with the happy ending where I stand up in church and declare how faithful God was through our infertility journey, baby in my arms. Instead, I'm staring down the reality that I'm aging out. That the door to adoption has slam

A different approach to gratitude We’ve all heard the well-meaning advice to focus on what we have rather than what we don’t have - “comparison is the enemy of contentment” or “comparison is the thief of joy”. But doing the often recommended “write down one thing you're thankful for a day” can feel pretty empty when you’re longing for a child, and instead are supposed to relish in your journal entry of “I’m thankful for the takeout we had for dinner”. It can feel like a rathe

Can you imagine yourself single, homeless with three children under the age of four, in the middle of a Canadian winter, with no one to call? What about if you’ve just arrived in Canada from your own dangerous country, but you’ve landed in hospital needing surgery, with no one to take care of your two school aged children? Think of a crisis you have been through and think about who you had to lean on for support. Who are the people you may have had on speed dial to help talk