Time Travel?

Today in Church, we had a guest speaker, John Partington. He is the main leader of the AOG denomination our church is a part of, and I usually enjoy when he preaches. Not that I didn't today. But maybe because of what has been happening recently, I found it a lot more challenging today.

Today he spoke on nothing being impossible for God, and he used the example of Abraham and Sarah. When he was 99, Abraham had a visit from God to say, "Hey, Abraham, you're going to be a dad, even though Sara is 90 and you've not been able to have kids yet." Now as someone who has been TTC for a while, this is one of those "fall back" stories I like to go to... that if God can make it possible for Sarah in her 90's to have a baby, then it's not impossible for Him to create life in my 30-something body! Like seriously, I have 60 years on her!

But I know there are times in our journey when it doesn't seem like nothing is impossible, and I'm sure Sarah would have prayed and prayed and pleaded over those 90 years, to have reached the point where she thought, "This is just too difficult, even for God to do."

John said something like, "God always hears our prayers" and my internal dialogue replied to him, "Except when He doesn't" because let's be real there are times when anyone of us can feel that not quite everything is possible for God. It seems like we have flummoxed God with what we are asking Him for.... or maybe that our voice has become lost in the bigger problems of the world we live in. I can understand why Sarah laughed when she heard she was going to have a baby. Especially if she had gone through menopause and had forgotten about wanting to be a mother after all those years.... How long did women remain fertile for back in the day??? Especially as women married much younger then than we do today.

But, as I reflect on this, and it ties in significantly with the Woman to Woman conference I attended last weekend (read more here), I have to find peace in the conclusion, that in spite of how I feel about not having a Baby yet, in spite of how things look, in spite of how many times I pray, God is the only One I can really trust with my life and the road He has me on. I'm not dead yet, which means He still has a plan for my life. And although I feel as though He has forgotten about me, or isn't listening to me, or I have suddenly created this impossible scenario (for God?? Really?? Do I think I am THAT grandiose??? To create an impossibility for the Creator of the world, and of my little life???), that somewhere in it all, I can find peace that God is working things out around me. 

I love to ask questions, and one of the "silly" questions which often gets put "out there" is, "What superpower would you most like to have. I would love to travel through time. I would love to go back in time to the newly-wed Sarah who was watching her friends and sisters having children, and wrestling with why she wasn't having the baby she should be able to conceive, and reassure her, "Hey, Sarah, it's OK.... when you're 90, you're going to be a mum." But it probably wouldn't have been much comfort to the young 20 year old girl. She might have laughed then.... a woman in her nineties becoming a mother..... That's a tabloid headline!! In the same way, I'd also like to travel forward in my own life and find out what happens five years from now, ten years from now. Do I have children? Does God have something else planned?? Does it get any easier to handle???

But I can't travel through time, so I have to keep focussed on the One Who is above and beyond time, and know that whatever happens, He is right with me, reassuring me, and speaking His words of life into my heart. So maybe.... nothing is impossible for God, even changing my heart to line up with His plan for me.


Father God, I'm sorry for when I doubt You, or doubt what You say in Your Word. It's hard to believe when I sometimes expect You to answer my prayers in my way at my time. I don't mean to try to lead You, I need to allow You to lead me. Help me when I start to try to walk in front of You, but Lord.... help me when I am afraid to lean on You and know You are by my side, even if things don't seem to be going my way. In Jesus' name.

Women in the Bible who Didn't Conceive

Whenever I think about women in the Bible whose stories relate to ours, with the journey for a Baby, there always seems to be a happy ending to their stories. But no amount of faith or hoping can guarantee a happy ending to my story. And I'm not speaking out of faith here, I'm just being realistic!

So I asked God, "Lord, where are the story of women who would have wanted to become mothers, in the Bible, but who didn't?"

There are three women who came to mind, and I have decided to study their stories for this blog. 

Part of what I do in my "real life" is to teach from the Scriptures, so it would be only right to allow this aspect of my character and passion to flow through to what I am doing here in this blog, in order to remain true to myself. The purpose of this blog is to offer encouragement to anyone who is on a similar Journey for Bubba to mine. Although, at the end of the day our stories will all be different, and this may not actually interest you. But I needed to know if there really are women in the Bible who anyone can relate to - and I believe this is what God is showing through the lives of the three women He is highlighting.

As I read through each woman's story, I hope to be able to share my study with you.
But for now, here are the three women:  

Tamar (1 Samuel 13)
"So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom’s house."

Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11)
"And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man."

Anna (Luke 2)
"She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years"

Understanding Jacob's Rachel

I'm a woman. What other purpose do I have, if I cannot give my husband children. I look at my sister, his other wife, and she has practically birthed a whole village as his heritage. And my maidservant, along with her maidservant followed suit - but he is my husband. In fact, it seems like every women - slave and free - around me is either pregnant or with babies and children hanging off their skirts. Every woman except me.

All my life, I have been preparing for womanhood... by womanhood, I mean motherhood, for the two are inseparable. That's what Ima* always taught as I was growing up. Everything I was taught was about looking after my husband, and looking after my children. It's the way Adonai designed my body. For motherhood. Everything was about motherhood. I just sit and watch the women around me fulfilling their purpose and being mothers. And my heart aches, for I cannot. I have not fulfilled my purpose as a woman. What other reason am I here except to give my Husband an heir... except my sister has beaten me to that, a few times over. I can't even give him a daughter to dote on, for she beat me to that too!

What else is there for me. I might as well have not been born. I have no future. My story, my heritage will die with me when I am dead. I can't even do that one thing which Ima told me was natural for every woman. Oh Lord, who am I? 

Jacob, give me children or else I should die. I have no purpose to you. I have nothing to offer you. GIVE ME A CHILD!

I don't know who I should be. There is no reason for my husband to be lumbered with me if I have no children to give him. I am cursed. I am not blessed. He is of a blessed heritage! I remember the stories he shared with me about his Grandfather, Abraham, and his father, Isaac. Of the blessing of Adonai. Of the promises He gave for the future heritage He would bless them with. I am so obviously outside of that blessing, I might as well not even be here. Oh Adonai, that You would release me from this life. That You would release my husband from the burden of my barrenness. Oh Adonai, that You would take away this pain of not fulfilling the basic purpose for which You created me. Oh Adonai, I would rather die than never be a mother. 

Remember your husband's grandmother, Sarah.
Rachel, remember her story.
Remember how I redeemed her, fulfilled My purpose in her.
Do not fear, Rachel. Do not wish away your life. For greater things are yet to be birthed through you. Shalom, My daughter. Breathe in My Shalom.




*Ima is the Hebrew word for Mother

Two Women With Similar Stories, But Different Responses.

Two women with similar stories. Two women with different responses.

In the Bible, there are a few stories of women who have been labelled as "barren". That's how they are introduced to us. There's Sarai (changed to Sarah), wife of Abram (changed to Abraham), who "was barren; she had no child" (Genesis 11:30). Notice how in the one sentence we are informed twice of her label, just in case we missed the point. This obviously makes the miracle of God's provision of Abraham's heir through his wife even more amazing.

But for a while, my focus hasn't been on Sarah, nor on Elizabeth - who bore John the Baptist - both of whom are the names of women people have mentioned to me when they are encouraging me.

I have been studying Rachel and Hannah. Two women from different points in history, who have a similar story, but who respond in very different ways.

Rachel. The wife of Abraham's grandson, Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel after he wrestled with God). Rachel, who was so loved by Jacob that he worked for her father, his uncle, for an agreed period of seven years, but was duped "at the altar" into marrying Rachel's older sister, Leah. He loved Rachel so much, that he agreed to work for a longer period in order to have her as his wife too.

Rachel, the beautiful younger sister, younger wife, "but Rachel was barren" (Genesis 29:31). Not only did she face the monthly struggle to deal with another failed attempt to conceive, but her sister was producing heirs regularly, causing a bitter rivalry between the sisters, and deep envy and resentment within Rachel. One was loved. One could bear children.

In those days, barrenness was the worse "illness" any woman could be dealt in life. If a woman couldn't conceive, that was enough for her husband to divorce her. She was expected to produce an heir for her husband. This is why we see Rachel, as her Grandmother-in-Law before her, in her desperation to bear a child for Jacob, offering her maidservant to her husband as a surrogate for her inability to conceive.

We catch a glimpse of Rachel's desperation in Genesis 30:1 when she cries out to her husband, "Give me children, or else I die!" It's not until you have experienced the struggle to conceive a child do you fully appreciate Rachel's deep cry. Sometimes, when the verse is read out, it is spoken as if in normal conversation, but I imagine Rachel allowing the words to burst from her heart through her mouth in a moment of an impassioned plea, with tears spilling down her cheeks... "Give me children, or else I feel I have nothing else to live for - I have no future, no purpose - I would rather be dead"... her anguished sobs bouncing around the walls of their room as Jacob tries to comfort his wife, and another monthly period begins... "I want to be a mother above everything else, give me children!" Her animal-like wail reverberating throughout history, caressing the heart of every women who understands Rachel's pain and anguish.

It's almost accusatory, her challenge to Jacob. It's almost as if she has allowed herself to believe he is with-holding from her and only giving his seed to her sister. You hear it in her words, "YOU, my husband, give me children too". He becomes angry - which I see as a sign of his helplessness at her situation. He knows her frustration, but knows he cannot replace God in her circumstances. He knows he is helpless against the Creator God  Whom he once wrestled, "Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" He responds.

Rachel.
A woman loved by her husband in spite of her struggle to bear him a child.
A women who railed against her husband.

Then a few centuries later, we meet Hannah. The wife of a man called Elkanah, who was so loved by him, she would receive double portions of the offerings, "but Hannah had no children" (1 Samuel 1:2).

Hannah, like Rachel, was one of two wives to the same husband. Hannah, like Rachel, was barren. Hannah, like Rachel, was taunted by the other wife. We don't know much about Peninnah except that she had children, and she "provoked [Hannah] severely to make her miserable... year by year, when she went up to the House of the Lord" (1 Samuel 1:6-7).

Hannah was so heartbroken by her own sorrow and distress, coupled with the derision of "her rival" that Hannah was no longer able to eat. She was suffering so much every month, that I believe depression (bitterness of soul - verse 10) literally seized her at the hopeless beginning of another cycle each month, that Hannah couldn't do anything to contain her grief. She couldn't eat. She could only cry - weeping, mourning in deep despair and anguish.

Again, it is not until you are in this situation every single month, where you feel a grief for what you have lost, the chance to conceive - gone... again, the failed attempt to have a baby, the painful waiting process before your period has started again. When you endure this cycle month in, month out, year after year, you realise how each month a woman, like Hannah, grieves at what she has not been able to bear. Each precious egg which falls away, dying with the wasted opportunity of a precious life.

This is where the similarities between Rachel and Hannah end. Hannah, and it may have taken years of  the cycle of torment for her to reach this place, but here we find Hannah turning to God. Crying out to Him. Praying to Him, asking Him to open her womb, to allow her the joy of bearing a child, as she poured out her soul, her anguish, her pain, her sorrow to the Lord.

In these two stories, I can see how important it is for us, as women, to have the freedom to mourn our circumstances. It's OK.

In both of these women's lives, we see how God "opened up their wombs". This shows me that it's OK for us to share our fears and sadness with our husbands, but not to blame them. To seek comfort from them, but not to put them in the place of God. They may not always understand what we are going through, but God does. This is why, I believe, He has introduced us to women like Rachel and Hannah in His Word, the Bible. Because He understands our sorrow. He understands our grief. He understands us.

We are different, but maybe we are in a similar situation in our separate Journey's for our Bubbas. But I hope, like me, you find comfort in knowing that God sees our situation as being so important, He allowed us to find women in His Word who we can identify with. I pray that 2013 will bring a change to the Journey you are on. And I don't say that lightly. Whether it is a change in who we turn to, or a physical change in the joy of finding the journey itself has become what we are hoping for, on;y God knows. But I pray you will know His blessings in your life, as I seek His blessings in my own life.

Shalom in Jesus for 2013!