Walking Together

Years ago when I was first going through my Practitioner training, an educator said something very impactful to me that has become more and more meaningful as time goes on. She said: "You are Simon of Cyrene to your clients."

Think about the story of Jesus's Passion and Death. At one point while Jesus carried His cross up the hill to Calvary, He was so beaten, exhausted, and near death that He could scarcely go on. The soldiers realized that if they didn't get Him some assistance, He might die before they were able to crucify Him. They pulled Simon of Cyrene, an unsuspecting passerby from the crowd, to carry the Cross with Jesus for a bit. Simon of Cyrene couldn't take the cross for Jesus. He couldn't take away a single bit of the pain. He couldn't make the ultimate sacrifice and die on the Cross in Jesus's place. But he could walk alongside Him. He could shoulder part of the load for a while. Allow Jesus to catch His breath and give Him the strength and energy needed to complete the task at hand.

That is the ultimate calling for all Practitioners. Yes, a large portion of the teaching time that we have with clients is technical - how to make observations correctly and accurately, chart management and correction, physician referral, medication and supplement updates. But another big part of it is spiritual and emotional support. We have clients carrying very heavy crosses. Difficult marriages, infertility, hyper-fertility, health challenges. prolonged abstinence. There are times I leave meetings with a heavy heart, wishing there was more I could do to alleviate the things my clients are going through. I can't take away their cross and even when I can, in the long term, help make things better, healing and hope is usually a long and treacherous road. I feel so privileged to walk that road alongside them and lend a shoulder in carrying the load.

You can be assured that every practitioner at Groesbeck FertilityCare is praying for their clients daily. We often share prayer intentions with each other when a client is going through something particularly difficult. I think of my clients in Mass and offer sacrifices for them. We pray as a group and individually for our infertility clients in a particular way. Yes, you can expect high quality Creighton Model education from Groesbeck but you can also expect so much more.