(CT) – Counseling women through infertility and other medical issues may feel awkward. Church leaders have an obligation to do it anyway.

Callie Trombley remembers the first time she considered the spiritual significance of her body. Her mom brought it up. As a chaplain in the Air Force, her mom was used to having conversations about birth control, cramps, and family planning with young airmen seeking pastoral care. So when Callie was deciding whether to take birth control for painful periods as a young adult, her mom wanted her to recognize that it was not only a medical decision but a whole-person one.

Years later, when she stumbled upon the topic of contraception while reading a book about the imago Dei, the conversation with her mom rushed back to her. “It felt like a pricking of my spirit, and I knew I needed to dig deeper,” she shared with me. So Callie and her husband, Josiah, did what many Christians would—they scheduled a meeting with their pastor. (Read More)