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.

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

When we stood at the altar, the priest looked us in the eyes and asked: “Will you accept children lovingly from God?” Our response was an exuberant: “We will.” And we meant it. We were assured: be open to life, and life will come. Be faithful. Be patient. Be generous. Be hopeful. So we waited. And waited. And waited. We didn't know it would hurt this much, but we said yes to life. And we’d say yes again.

One particularly painful manifestation of toxic positivity and prosperity Gospel in Christian infertility circles is the emphasis that every couple in scripture who experienced infertility eventually had a child. We should remember that for every barren woman turned mother in scripture, many others were never blessed with children. When we present only the “success stories,” we inadvertently suggest that those still waiting simply haven’t waited long enough or prayed hard eno

This year at The Fruitful Hollow, our theme is "fruitfulness in your home and marriage". We are exploring ways we can exercise fruitfulness in our domestic church, physical home, hobbies, relationships and wider family, even in times of darkness. This week we're extending that to our places of work, wherever those may be. 

In my journey through the Christian life, certain spiritual mentors have guided and shaped me in profound ways. In college, it was St....

choosing to stay faithful to Church teaching, faithful to your husband and faithful to your body is pro-life, even if it means not having children at all. By choosing not to pursue anti-life options, you're standing up for life. By not commodifying children, you're protecting a culture of life and your options of showing it are limitless. 

Nearly 10 years later, I still think about that version of myself that had to sit there and begin to process the reality of my complete infertility. There is still a part of me that has been frozen, stuck in that doctor’s office. And I avoided that 19 year-old as much as I could over the near decade. My fertility was gone and, with it, my worth. Or, at least that’s the lie I told myself.

Then, Easter changed. It became a season of darkness and perpetual death. This darkness settled in my heart after we miscarried our first and only biological child. I was left barren and fruitless. Although Jesus died and resurrected, I remained dead inside because my fertility was dead and would never resurrect.

Discerning next steps can be challenging enough on your own, but discerning as a married couple is sometimes even harder. When it comes to..

This year at The Fruitful Hollow, our theme is "fruitfulness in your home and marriage". We are exploring ways we can exercise ...

At the foundation of every couple’s union is the art of communication. Through the spoken word, physical cues, and rituals of affection...

Infertility is deeply painful but can be fertile ground for nurturing these fruits of the Spirit. Spiritual fruitfulness is no less valuable

Love centered on Christ is always fruitful. It is transformed in Christ. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains that “the love of the beloved lift

If you’ve discerned this is the end of your trying-to-conceive journey, do not despair. If your family size is smaller than desired...

It’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy, but it is something I’ve had to do, and it was perhaps the most vulnerable moments of...

To mark Baby Loss Awareness Month, we have created these reflections on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary as a way of accompanying all..

Society tends to define a woman's fruitfulness by her ability to bear children. This concept of fruitfulness is narrow and can leave those..

I wrote out my entire personal journey in a memoir I published several years ago called “Twelve Stripes Deep: How Infertility & Other ...