Tag: A Seed of Hope: God’s Promises of Fertility

Mother’s Day and Infertility

Posted on by Evangeline

mother's day infertilityMother’s Day and infertility–they just don’t seem to go together. If you’re in the throes of infertility, is this a difficult time for you?

I remember some years ago when I dreaded Mother’s Day because I was struggling with infertility and it was difficult to get through that Day without feeling inadequate. Despite all the “trying” my husband and I had been doing, nothing was working and I felt like so out-of-place on that Day.

I wanted to experience pregnancy and it seemed that I couldn’t.

I wanted to watch my tummy grow and it seemed like that could very possibly be impossible.

I wanted to feel the baby kicking and moving inside of me and it seemed that I wouldn’t.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

With infertility, the finite disappointment rolls around on a monthly basis, but don’t allow it to make you lose hope in Jesus’ for love you. Don’t let the doctor’s diagnosis make you lose hope for having a child. There’s a spiritual enemy, the devil, that would love for you to give up on Jesus–don’t let him win. Hope is what gets us through the tough times. I overcame infertility because I did not lose hope…I did not give up on God promises.

Reinforce your hope this week by digging more deeply into God’s promises of fertility. Let them give you courage to rest in His unfailing integrity, His covenantal willingness, and His omnipotent strength. Placing our hope in Jesus is the only sure thing. He desires to be our anchor, especially in times of raging storms.

“We have this HOPE as an anchor for the soul.” ~ Hebrews 6:19

Stay in the Word this week…allow Jesus’ love to speak to you through it. Need some suggestions for some applicable verses to read? Check out the appendix in my fertility devotional, A Seed of Hope: God’s Promises of Fertility for lots of encouraging passages.

How will you cope with Mother’s Day 2015? Please share with us your ways of maintaining hope!

 

Image courtesy of 89studio | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

5 Secrets for Maintaining Hope When You Feel Like Giving Up

Posted on by Evangeline

Evangeline Colbert - Hope in Hard Places

Here are some thoughts about hope that I shared over a year ago at In Due Time. If you’re about to give up because you’re feeling stuck in a difficult situation, I think this will help:

I know what the pressure of infertility feels like. It’s as if it completely surrounds you, pressuring you to give up, to not see any advantage in continuing to hope. In the midst of infertility, life can feel like you’re always stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems like not much is working out in your favor. Every day seems as if infertility colors how you view life. It looms over every aspect of your life, clouding your vision so it’s hard to see anything good that’s on the horizon.

But I’m glad to share with you that in that place of feeling stuck, hope can shake things up, freeing you to enjoy life!

Here are 5 secrets that I’ve found to be powerful in nurturing and maintaining hope as you look to come out of this struggle with infertility.

  1. Believe God loves you. His love is a “no matter what” kind of love. No matter what you’ve done/thought/said, He loves you with an unfailing and unending love.
  2. Decide to not give up. Don’t underestimate the power of a decision!
  3. Remember the previous times, big or small, when God has come through for you. Encourage yourself.Think about those successes and the joy you experienced.
  4. On a daily basis, affirm the promise of God that relates to your situation by speaking the Word out loud. Instead of focusing on medical facts, allow God’s Word to be your point of focus and become your truth.
  5. Greet each morning with gratitude for the gift of a new day. This helps set a positive tone for the day ahead of you. Thankfulness has a way of shifting our attitude, choices, and behavior.

Hope established upon Jesus’ love never disappoints.

Hope is one of the three things that 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us will always remain as a resource that allows us to tap into God’s grace. We are to always have hope—the joyful and confident expectation of God coming through for us!

Allow hope to shake things up in your life so that you experience the freedom to confidently expect good things from a very good Father.

An Affirmation for You: God loves me and desires for me to experience only His goodness. I rest in His love for me. I choose to allow His desires for my life to be my desires. I maintain my hope in God!

When you’re feeling stuck in a situation at work, how do you bring yourself out of that? How can you apply that same strategy to infertility or some other personal struggle?

 

How to Have Strong Faith

Posted on by Evangeline

Have you been wondering how to have STRONG faith?

strong faith

“Let us hold tightly to the confession of faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised.” ~ Hebrews 10:23

The character of Jesus is such that He would NEVER lie (Numbers 23:19). His character, which is completely based on love, paves the way for having strong faith in Him because He would never make a promise and then go back on His Word or fail to fulfill it. Hold tightly– don’t loosen your grip on His promises. God’s words and His promises are true. Get into the habit of confessing your faith in them out loud.  The passage in 2 Corinthians 1:20 assures us that His answers to His promises are already “Yes” in Christ.

How can you have strong faith?

Romans 10:17 informs us that faith comes by hearing:

“So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.” (NLT)

“The Good News about Christ” is that He has finished all the work and fulfilled all the requirements necessary in order for the Father to say “Yes.” There’s no work left to be done except to believe in Jesus’ love and His willingness to bring good things into our lives (John 6:29). When we hear ourselves reading about His love and repeatedly hear ourselves saying God’s words, it builds our faith. When we hear ourselves speaking the specific promises God made about our personal situation, it builds our faith in those promises. It increases our confidence in God’s integrity, in His ability to do what seems impossible, and in His willingness to do everything He promised.

Doubt is the enemy that comes along to plug our ears to the Good News  so that we’re not hearing God’s promises. Doubt distracts us from looking to Jesus. When we’re enticed by the devil’s doubts to give up on God’s promises, we must react by speaking God’s Word to those doubts. By doing so, we choose to retain hope within our soul and expect God to do what He said He’d do. Our  soul, which consists of our mind, will, and emotions, must choose to believe the promise, speak the promise to the problem while undergirding that confession with hope, and “act as if” the promise is already true.

When we have confidence in God fulfilling His promises and we have only a strong expectation of a good outcome, that is when we are empowered and living with strong faith.

 

A Promise is a Promise

Posted on by Evangeline

Promise: a statement telling someone that you will definitely do something or that something will definitely happen in the future 

[Source: Webster’s Dictionary]

 

What is your expectation of a promise? So many people in our lives, both private and public, have broken their promises until the definition of that word has been greatly diluted.  Has Webster’s definition of promise, as being definitive and actionable, lost its strength?

What good are promises if they’re not kept?

I’ve recently gotten some feedback from a precious few who think that it’s OK to not expect that God would keep His promises. If your husband/ wife/parent/boss/etc. made a promise to you, you’d expect them to follow through and make it happen. If the promise wasn’t kept, would you be OK with that? I don’t think so!  If someone doesn’t keep their promise it makes them a liar– as far as the promise itself is concerned.  The Bible clearly tells us that God is NOT a liar which means that He keeps all of His promises (Numbers 23:19). Shouldn’t we expect God to keep His promises?

When I was 10 or 11, I joined a Girl Scout troop. Mrs. Skaggs was our troop leader. Every time we’d have a troop meeting in the large basement of her home, she would lead us in reciting the Girl Scout Promise. Here’s my tattered handbook that shows the promise we made at each meeting.

Evangeline's Junior Girl Scout Manual
Girls Scout Promise

No matter how hard I tried, I did not fully keep that promise from week to week. I was not always dutiful, helpful, or obedient. Most of the time, I wasn’t even trying to be those things.

But, God keeps ALL of His promises. 

“Not one word has failed of all the wonderful promises he gave.” 1 Kings 8:56

 

God's promises

This hangs in my laundry room as reminder.

 

 What does God say about His promises?

Here’s what He says about the matter:

God's Promises Are YES

This means that His answer to your prayer of faith in His promise, is “Yes” because of the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

His promises are sure. Confess them out loud repeatedly to renew your mind, to build your faith (faith comes by hearing), and to increase your expectation of good — your HOPE. Also, speak the Amen (“so be it”) for His promises to be manifested in your life.

Is your confidence in His promises waning? Don’t cast out His promises or your confidence in them (Hebrews 10:35,36). You can count on Him to come through, even when it seems that He’s taking too long to fulfill His promises according to your timeline.

Be encouraged as you step into the new year of 2015 believing that God keeps all His promises!

What will you do in 2015 to ensure that you take advantage of what the Father has already lovingly provided to you in His promises through Jesus?

 

 

A Black Friday Just for Books–The Read Tuesday Event

Posted on by Evangeline

Read Tuesday

Love to read books? Wish there were a Black Friday just for books? There is! It’s called Read Tuesday, and it happens on December 9, 2014. Some of the books are already on sale!

Take advantage of this amazing deal on my book, A Seed of Hope, on Amazon– “Buy the print edition, get the e-book for free.” What a great way to gift the book to someone else and be able to keep the ebook for yourself!

This is the season of bringing hope to others and I can’t think of a better way to share the hope of God’s promises of fertility.

If you read ebooks on a platform other than Kindle (Apple, Kobo, Nook, etc.), I have a deal for you as well. The digital format of A Seed of Hope will be FREE on Smashwords through 12/12/14 by using the coupon code BL66C.

As a bonus, I’m also discounting my book, Infertility Sucks! How to Maintain Hope in Your Marriage During Infertility. You can get it for $0.99 on Amazon on Read Tuesday (12/9/14 only).

Find out about the other Read Tuesday authors and their books here.

Happy book shopping!

 

The “Holy But” – How Good Grammar Can Bring Godly Results

Posted on by Evangeline

The Holy ButIn elementary school, or in junior high school, you probably learned about the grammatical impact of the word “but” in a sentence. The word “but” is a conjunction, joining two phrases. It is a powerful word to use because  “but” essentially negates the idea in the first phrase and implies that something else should be considered.

Here’s a quick list of what “but” can do:

  • suggests there’s a chance for a different outcome
  • implies there’s something which should not be forgotten
  • serves to redirect your attention
  • implies doubt in the preceding phrase and a more confident expectation in the phrase that follows
  • marks an opposition to the preceding phrase

As I was writing my book, A Seed of Hope: God’s Promises of Fertility, one of the things that Holy Spirit whispered to me to include was how to use the “Holy But.” I laughed when I heard that– the Holy But. However, I began to understand how using it could bring godly results to our ungodly circumstances. You’re probably wondering what makes the “but” holy. The use of God’s Word following the “but” is what makes it serve a holy purpose in your life.

When you find yourself saying some negative things about yourself that you know you should not have released from your mouth, use the Holy But by stating some truth from God’s Word that addresses the circumstance that you previously stated negatively.

For example, you may have said in a moment of exasperation, “I feel like I’ll never be pregnant!” Quickly follow that up by saying, “BUT, God said that none shall be barren and that includes me” (Exodus 23:26). Maybe you’re experiencing some financial challenges and you might slip and say, “I’m always broke.” When you catch yourself, say something like, “BUT, Jesus is with me and He prospers me (1 Chronicles 22:11). The key is to negate your negative statement by stating what God has said about the matter using the word “but”. You see, good grammar really can bring godly results (Proverbs 18:21)!

God’s Truth is stronger than your fact. It is powerful and never changes. God’s Truth never fails. When you believe it and speak it, it can actually change your facts of life. What’s God’s Truth? It’s His Word of love and grace toward you (John 17:17). God’s Word doesn’t change but it does change– it is eternal. It’s power can change your circumstances. It can change how you see yourself and your circumstances. It is absolute—you can count on it!

Use the Holy But to:

  • Express belief about the outcome God has planned for you
  • Remind yourself of God’s viewpoint of the matter
  • Redirect your attention to Jesus’ love for you
  • Erase doubt and affirm your confidence in God’s words
  • Declare your opposition to the negative thing you’ve previously said

Use what I call the “Holy BUT” in your everyday conversations.

It is applicable in any circumstance. It is a simple exercise that will redirect your focus and strengthen your faith.

In the midst of negative circumstances, what do you do to redirect your focus to Jesus’ words, love, and viewpoint?

 

10 Bible Verses All Women Facing Infertility Need to Know

Posted on by Evangeline

Here is a consolidation of  a couple of posts that I previously shared. I hope you find this encouraging and a source of light in what can be a dark and lonely experience.

If you are struggling with infertility, you know what a hopeless situation it can become, if you let it. When I dealt with it, I found the best source of hope was the Bible. It contains numerous scriptures that pertain directly to infertility. It also gives many accounts of women who were once barren/infertile/childless but became a mother, all because they trusted God to be true to His promises of fertility.

Infertility Sucks! But I know from personal experience that it can be overcome. Here are some verses that I meditated on and repeatedly used as verbal affirmations, putting my name in each scripture.  You’ll find them to beBelieve Infertile Woman Bible Verse great sources of HOPE.

Deuteronomy 7:14 [NKJV] ~ “You shall be blessed above all people; there shall not be male or female barren among you.”

Isaiah 50:7 [NKJV] ~ “For the Lord God will help me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.”

Leviticus 26:9 [Amplified Bible] ~ “For I will be leaning toward you with favor and regard for you, rendering you fruitful, multiplying you and establishing and ratifying my covenant with you.”

Hebrews 11:11 [NLT] ~ “It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old. She believed that God would keep his promise.”

Luke 1:37 ~ “For with God NOTHING shall be impossible.”

 

Sunset CloudsJohn 17:23 (NLT)- “…you love them as much as you love me [Jesus]”

Lamentations 3:26 (NKJV)- “It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

Hebrews 13: 5 (NLT)- “For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”

1 John 5:4 (NLT)- “For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.”

1 John 5:14, 15 (NIV)- “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

 

 

What other bible verses do you depend on to give you hope during infertility?

 

 

Bringing Champions to Birth

Posted on by Evangeline

It’s important to bring God’s champions to birth. They make a difference in this world!

I want to encourage you visit to my friend’s blog at www.waitingforbabybird.com. Elisha shares her desire to celebrate the victory of childbirth, even before it’s manifested in her life.

Here’s a note of encouragement that I wrote in May 2012 about barrenness, with a similar theme about champions. I thought I’d share it with you today.

Champions
Photo source: www.trophies2go.com

Champions are sometimes born and not necessarily made. Examples would be Isaac, Samson, and John the Baptist. Each of them were born of mothers who had suffered with infertility. Each of these sons made a champion-sized difference in their nation.

Their mothers, Sarah, Manoah’s wife, and Elizabeth, respectively, each thought they would never give birth to a child, after years of “trying.” But God had a different thought. He saw the future He had planned for them. It was a plan of fertility: a future of overcoming barrenness. It was a plan based on His love for them. When they each BELIEVED in His plan and His love, they each conceived and successfully delivered a healthy baby.

Want to know God’s love-plan for you? You’ll find it in the Bible—His Word. It contains many promises for fertility and examples of women who overcame barrenness/ infertility.

I encourage you to trust God and BELIEVE in His love-plan for you.

If you need some help in believing God’s promises of fertility for you and maintaining hope for the champion you desire to birth, 50 Days of Unleashing Fertility Hope may be just what you need. This is an online program, which is an extension of my book, A Seed of Hope, that can help you unleash hope. It starts on 9/27/14 and will give you access to a community of other like-minded women—women who want to bring champions to birth.

Click here for more information and to register. 

Fertility Teleseminar is Tomorrow!

Posted on by Evangeline

iHope Fertility Game Plan Teleseminar

Do you struggle with maintaining hope in God’s promises during infertility?

I’m excited that tomorrow, Saturday, 9/13/14, I will host a teleseminar for women dealing with infertility. You can access this fertility teleseminar simply by using your phone. During the call, I’ll share a blueprint that will help you to effectively address the spiritual aspect of infertility. I hope you’ll join me for this time of encouragement and prayer. Your access to the call is FREE.

This call will help you learn crucial strategies to:

  • Transform your despair into hope
  • Release your stress
  • Know God’s Truth as your truth
  • Activate your faith

Get access to this free call HERE.

Infertility's roller coaster
Are you riding infertility’s roller coaster?

If you’re tired of being on the drops, curves, and loops of infertility’s emotional roller coaster, this call is for you.

If you’re feeling like God has forgotten you, this call is for you.

If you’re about to give up on God coming through for you, this call is for you.

If you’re walking strong in your faith, but need a little pep added to your step, this call is for you.

 

 

I’m looking forward to sharing with you some very simple and easy, yet crucial keys that can help you if you put them into action.

Join me on the call; it’s absolutely FREE.

It’s not too late to share this post with friends who are in the season of infertility. Let’s encourage as many people as we can!

Click here to get the call’s dial-in details.

I’ll “see” you and your friends TOMORROW! 🙂

iHope Infertility Teleseminar

Posted on by Evangeline

iHope Fertility Game Plan Teleseminar

 

Does the despair and stress of infertility make it difficult for you to maintain hope while you wait for your breakthrough to have a baby? Has it become an all-consuming thing in your life? Is infertility robbing you of your peace of mind?

If you’ve been encouraged by my book, A Seed of Hope: God’s Promises of Fertility, you know that I overcame infertility and I believe God is faithful to His promises, especially the ones related to fertility.

On Saturday, 9/13/14, I will host a teleseminar for women struggling with infertility. You can access this infertility teleseminar simply by using your phone. During the call, I’m excited to share with you a fertility game plan that will help you to effectively address the spiritual aspect of infertility. I hope you’ll join me for this time of encouragement and prayer. Your access to the call is FREE.

This call will help you learn crucial strategies to:

  • Transform your despair into hope
  • Release your stress
  • Know God’s Truth as your truth
  • Activate your faith

Get access to this free call HERE.

Infertility's roller coaster
Are you riding infertility’s roller coaster?

If you’re tired of being on the drops, curves, and loops of infertility’s emotional roller coaster, this call is for you.

If you’re feeling like God has forgotten you, this call is for you.

If you’re about to give up on God coming through for you, this call is for you.

If you’re walking strong in your faith, but need a little pep added to your step, this call is for you.

 

 

I’m looking forward to sharing with you some very simple and easy, yet crucial keys that can help you if you put them into action.

Join me on the call; it’s absolutely FREE.

One more thing, would you please share this post with friends who are in this season of infertility? Let’s encourage as many people as we can!

Here’s where you’ll get the call’s access details.