Does God Know When..?

I was praying for a friend at our Church Prayer Meeting the other night, she is on a similar journey with her Hubby, although they have been on the road for many years. The reason we ended up praying together was because someone had just brought a Word of knowledge, and the the Pastor asked us to "seal the Word of God" and to pray in pairs, specifically for God to break-through where we individually need God to move in our lives. So because my friend and I are closely supporting each other, she suddenly appeared next to me while the Pastor was still speaking.

Now, I'll be honest, I was still in that frame of mind which had affected my weekend, where I still trying to find God in this leg of the journey, nevermind having the faith to pray anything coherent!

But, God literally worked through my brokenness and the Holy Spirit prayed through my mouth for my friend. She looked at me, with tears on her cheeks and said, "Wow! That's God!" and I was like, "It must have been, I've literally got nothing!!" That's when you know God IS walking by your side, when you somehow find the words to join your faith with someone else and pray.

One of the things I prayed for them, was about God being with them to the point where they can literally hear His voice telling them the right time, the right moment, for the seed to be fertilised. This has lead me to wonder, "Just how much does God actually care about our daily lives?" Obviously He knows our bodies intimately, and He knows how the development of Bubba will occur but can He, through His Holy Spirit, lead us to the when? The when for a Hubby and wife to make love and release the seed which is needed?

If He can... then I pray that our ears will be tuned into His voice so that we will know that one moment needed for that one egg to be fertilised. I pray that every Hubby and wife who knows the Lord, and can hear His voice, will learn to recognise His voice, even in that one moment. And may He fill our empty arms with the much longed-for Bubba. In Jesus name.

Prayer for Infertility - Learning From My Jewish Roots

Although I am the grand-daughter of a Ashkenazi Jewish refugee, when my father became a believer in Jesus as the prophesied Messiah, we were brought up in a Christian, rather than a Jewish, home - and I praise God for this wonderful foundation granted to me through my parents faith in Him. Since my twenties, I have been developing more and more of an understanding of the Jewish aspects of my relationship with God, the Scriptures, life and others. There is such a depth I have discovered as a Jewish-Christian that at times I wish I had known about them sooner!

Woman Entering Mikvah

This is became stronger today, as I found a ritual Jewish based on Leviticus 15:19-24, which Jewish women still follow, which God had set out when He first met the Children of Israel at Mount Sinai. I'm not saying I would particularly follow this personally, but I have discovered that contained within this ritual is a prayer of strength for the women who is TTC, which is so precious. In this, there is an acknowledgement of the struggle for women who, like the Matriarchs Sarah, Rachel and Rebecca and not forgetting Hannah, desire to become a mother of her own Bubba. Through this monthly prayer, there seems to be a freedom for the woman, unlike us Christians who are still hiding from infertility, to be allowed to grieve in order to move forward each month. Because at the end of the day, the monthly journey can't be covered by a prayer from three months ago - as each cycle of hope for Bubba fades with the arrival of Aunt Flo.

Every month, after Aunt Flo has been and gone, Jewish women enter a Mikvah (a large bath used in Jewish rituals for full immersion in order for the person to be purified and made clean - there were literally hundreds of them around the Temple in Jesus' day!!) in order to be purified after her period. Before she is immersed, she says a prayer, which in the case of a woman who is TTC is so significant, and such a blessing as it acknowledges the pain, the struggle and the hope for life:

A Meditation - Using the Mikveh when Dealing with Infertility

Prayer written on the ritualwell website, shared by Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers

Mekor Rakhamim (meaning ‘source/place of mercy’. While at such times [Rabbi Debbie] do[es] not sense the merciful, giving God, Rakhamim has it’s root in Rekhem, meaning womb, and therefore is an obvious choice) I thank you for the blessing that is contained in my body’s abilities and functions, which I should not take for granted. But I also cry out to you in my pain, anxiety, and wants. I do not expect an answer, and yet I hope for one.

Help me and my beloved stay strong through the coming month, and remember the strength we share together. We pray that this will be stronger than my monthly remembrance of death, contained within which is a reminder of the hope for life. Help us not to blame ourselves, or each other, and to accept those blessings we do have, rather than focusing on those we do not.

May I find comfort in the merit of my mothers, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Hannah, who called out to you in their childlessness, and were comforted.

Blessed are You Eternal, who creates each of us whole, and none of us perfect. 

I'm not saying I should suddenly start looking for the nearest Mikvah and start dunking myself under each month, but I think this prayer would become a valuable part of the Journey for Bubba on a regular basis. Surely bringing God to the forefront of our pain, of our struggle is the key thing here! Surely inviting God to keep His hand over Hubby and I each month, as we go through the monthly cycle of hope, anticipation, waiting and failure can only be a good thing.

I hope this type of monthly prayer can be a source of comfort and strength to those of us who are embroiled in the monthly battle of TTC. The battle is not ours, it belongs to the Lord!

Laying a Future Claim!!

Over the weekend, I had been reading the Daily Mail, when I came across this article about a woman who gave birth "in two pushes" whilst in the bath (Read the article here). 

I so claim that for myself!!! Haha! 

If we have a choice as to how we give birth, then this is the easy, straightforward way I would like to have Bubba. And if the advice in the book "Supernatural Childbirth" is anything to go by, then by all accounts it seems possible. 

The way I see it, is that if I have sown in tears, then I should reap in joy according to Psalm 126:5!!! And the Lord knows how many tears have been spent in this Journey for Bubba! So ergo, to reap in joy, sans pain, sans difficult labour, in quick time - that would be perfect!!! Hey, if the women of Israel can do it when they were captive in Egypt (Exodus 1:19:  And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.”) then why can't I... or you!

Lord, here my prayer for the future! :-) 

Supernatural Childbirth - Another Helpful Book

Before Christmas, a friend of mine lent me a book she had been reading. She is, like me, struggling to conceive. She is further on in her journey, having tried IVF a couple of times. It helps to know that we are not the only couple in the Church who have been struggling with this issue. Anyway, she had bought a book called Supernatural Childbirth, by Jacki Mize (view book and biography on the Publishers website).

Now a few years ago, this book was doing "the rounds" among my pregnant friends, because in it Jackie talks about having pain-free births for the last three of her four children. So I have to be honest and say that initially, when I was given the book, my first thoughts were, "thank you very much, but I won't read that". I took it home and put it on my bedside table praying, "Lord, if You think there is something I can get from this book, then please prompt me to read it, otherwise I'll give it back to her in a couple of weeks."

I then forgot about it, as it gradually became buried under my Bible, my journal and a couple of other books I was reading!


About a week ago, it was staring at me from under my Bible, and I decided to read it. I have to be honest and say it was not what I had expected. I guess because it is called supernatural childBIRTH, and because all my pregnant friends had read it in preparation for their labour, I'd had pre-conceived ideas about it not being relevant for someone struggling to conceive - almost forgetting that my friend who gave it to me is also TTC.

Jackie Mize says, thoughout the book, that to start praying for a supernatural childbirth is best before you conceive. She talks about her own struggle to conceive, and the lessons she learnt through talking with God about her struggle, and about the prayers she prayed leading to the result of having three children supernaturally, pain-free and without complication. She says it's OK to ask God for a particular gender, and it is more worthwhile asking God before you conceive, rather than expecting Him to change the baby's gender in your womb! She says it is more beneficial to pray over every aspect of the pregnancy and labour before you are, as you invite God into the whole process, rather than at the end of it.

She looks at the relationships in the Bible of the "barren women", and shares some of the insights God gave to her and her husband, including some important lessons regarding the curse given by God after Adam and Eve had sinned in the Garden (see Genesis 3:14-19). She explains how the Holy Spirit had revealed to her and her husband that the word "sorrow" doesn't mean sadness / pain etc.. as has been interpreted for centuries. Rather the Hebrew word "sorrow" has the same meaning as "grief" as used of Jesus when He faces the cross. Jesus is not sorrowful - He is grieved.

One of the greatest aspects of this small book, for me, was the fact that throughout there is a sense of Jackie and her husband Terry TOGETHER in the journey. Her husband shares her sorrow and grief and together they seek God for conception and a pain free pregnancy and delivery. There's such a sense that she was not alone in her Journey for Bubba.

At the end of the book, Jackie provides the reader with a selection of prayers she prayed, not as a "this is how it should be done", but as a "this worked for me, allow the Holy Spirit to adapt it for you". Sometimes I find it hard to know HOW to pray, so having this book has opened up a way for me to pray when I don't know how to. Not because I don't rely on the Holy Spirit, but because it helps to have the guidance of others who have gone before me.

The upshot of this is that I have ordered the book for myself, and the corresponding Prayers and Promises for Supernatural Childbirth which Jackie produced later!

If, like me, you sometimes just don't know how to pray, because infertility is one of those topics which isn't discussed much in Churches, then I would recommend you have a look at this one. Praying for our Bubba before he or she arrives, covering him or her at every stage of life, from conception to development to their arrival in the world, seems logical to me. I often pray for Bubba, but reading Supernatural Childbirth opened my eyes to praying wider... for a healthy egg and healthy sperm, for development in the womb, against any complications etc... as Jackie says, its better to pray before something has happened than after!

Another Word For The Hubby's

Genesis 25:21

Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his plea, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

I know I have used this verse in a previous blog, but the other day I was praying and really felt a strong prompt to pray for my husband to pray for me. More than just to pray for me, to PLEAD with the Lord on my behalf.

Pleading with the Lord has a stronger emphasis than a simple "Lord let her have a baby". It carries weight. It carries a sense that Isaac felt the burden of his wife's struggle and became involved in way that goes beyond merely comforting his wife each month.

According to the dictionary, to plead is:

• An EMOTIONAL appeal 
• To appeal earnestly - to BEG
• To use arguments and PERSUASIONS, as with a person, for or against something.

Far from being a passive type of prayer we can all be guilty of, particularly when asked to pray for someone, to PLEAD with the Lord meant that Isaac connected in a deep emotional way between how his wife was feeling. It meant that Isaac empathised with his wife and stepped into the gap with the Lord. It became an issue of importance to him, as well as to her. The fact that his wife was barren, and therefore a burden to her, meant that instead of leaving her to carry the burden herself, Issac took the load with her, and took it to the Lord.

I can imagine Isaac on his face before ADONAI, tears rolling down His face interceding and fasting, reminding God of the promises He had made to his father Abraham, that he was a child of the promise, reminding the Lord that it was His command in the first place for a husband and wife to be fruitful and to multiply, reminding the Lord that He was the Creator of life, and begging Him to change His mind on leaving Rebekah barren. 

God listened. 

God answered.

Rebekah conceived.

Father God I pray that You would stir up the hearts of the husbands, that they would connect with what their wives are going through and would step in the gap on their behalf. Lord I pray every husband who knows You, would connect with the journey his wife is on, and would connect with You, PLEADING with You to answer their heart's cry. 

1 Corinthians 11:3 says that the man covers his wife, and I pray Father God that husbands would cover his wife through intercession, not because You will listen to him more than you will listen to us women, but because You want Him to walk with his wife on Your behalf. In Jesus name, I ask that You would send Your Holy Spirit to stir up the heart of every husband of the wife who reads this prayer, including my own.