For Someday

{From Trying to Waiting}

I’m studying Genesis for Academy and love reading about the women in the bible. As I’m reading through the stories of our matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel), I see a common pattern. They all have trouble bearing children.

As we learned our first week in Academy, a woman’s ability to bear children was a big deal back then. It was identity for the woman and also, for the man. As I spend time reflecting on the lives of these women of our faith, I am confused, comforted, and hopeful.

I’m confused because from the very beginning, God tells Adam & Eve to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28). Seems as though the multiplying part is really dependent upon God, not them. (Then again, God’s covenant is always dependent upon Him, not us. It will be only because HE is.)

I realize that all of them really had no control over bearing children. In one verse it even says “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.” (Genesis 30:22) Not that God forgets, but thinking more like now it’s her time. He heard her cry, He placed that desire in her heart, He ultimately blesses her womb.

We have been trying to get pregnant since the end of last year. We’re not frustrated yet, but just in a place of disappointment. I am so comforted in these stories because no matter how old, how desperate, how crazy it seems . . . God is in control. He opens and closes the womb. It’s His say, His time.

So as people ask us all kinds of questions like if we have kids, do we want kids, why don’t we have kids, can you have kids, etc. my answer has been “We’re trying.”

I think I’ll change my response from “we’re trying” to “we’re waiting.” Like Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel waited . . . I’ll wait. I will wait in faith, in confident expectation, assurance of His character, and hope in Him.

A friend of mine gave me a gift for our first child, a blanket she started knitting when she found out we were trying. She handed it to me with a small card with two very encouraging words written on it . . . "For Someday". So I cling to that. Perhaps not today, not now, but someday.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

“For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to him.” (1 Samuel 1:27)