Tag: bible verses about fertility

Fertility Retreat 2015

Posted on by Evangeline

iHope Fertility Retreat

The iHope Fertility Retreat is fast approaching!

Get all the details of this fabulous weekend HERE. 

You’ve struggled long enough…

Feeling like infertility has taken over your life?

Want to address the SPIRITUAL aspect of infertility? 

Pull away from the daily stress of infertility and hear what God has to say about infertility (He doesn’t like it). Receive personalized prayer and encouragement for overcoming infertility.

Get new Word-based tools to help you maintain hope.

Workshops at the iHope Fertility Retreat will be based on the content of my book, A Seed of Hope: God’s Promises of Fertility. We’ll have discussions that help you with increase your trust in God’s lavish and unending love for YOU, and in His faithfulness to always follow through on His promises. The weekend will be filled with revelation centered on God’s promises of fertility.

This 3-day retreat is tailored to help you nourish your spirit and to draw closer to the One who has the solution to your every problem.

ihope retreat theme - largeYour registration fee includes your lodging, meals, workshop materials, and a signed copy of A Seed of Hope.

It’s time for some R&R … Rest and Receive at the iHope Fertility Retreat!

Enjoy a time of fun, pampering and recreation.

YOU NEED TO JOIN US AND RECEIVE THE BLESSING!

Reserve your place now at  www.EvangelineColbert.com/retreat-registration

Monday’s Marinade – Expectancy

Posted on by Evangeline

Monday’s Marinade is provided to you as a means of “soaking yourself” in the hope-filled Word of God at the beginning of your week. 

Start your week by meditating about waiting on God with expectancy. 

Repeatedly think about this and quietly say it to yourself.  

Marinate and season your week with hope and a confident expectation of good things happening!

Here’s your spiritual marinade:Monday's Marinade- EXPECTANCY - Ps 42-11

 

Monday’s Marinade – Use Your Words to Change Your Life

Posted on by Evangeline

Monday’s Marinade is provided to you as a means of “soaking yourself” in the hope-filled Word of God at the beginning of your week. Start your week by meditating about how your words change your life. Your words really do have an impact on your life — make the connection between what you say and what you have. Repeatedly think about this and quietly say it to yourself.  Marinate and season your week with hope and a confident expectation of good things happening!

Here’s your spiritual marinade to change your life with your words:

Monday's Marinade -Your Words

Focus Friday – Change Your Focus

Posted on by Evangeline

Change your focus in those moments when doubt sweeps over your soul. Remember to do as Hebrews 12:2 suggests:

“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”

Focus on that scripture throughout the day. Focus on His unchanging love. Focus on His unstoppable power. Focus on His faithfulness to always say “Yes” to His promises.

change your focus - looking unto Jesus

 

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.

 

The Danger of Hopelessness During Infertility

Posted on by Evangeline

Infertility and hopelessness--don't give up jpg

Hopelessness during infertility. The two seem to go together. But do they have to?

The danger of hopelessness is a loss of your joy, a critical element in maintaining hope. Hopelessness is spawned from giving up. Giving up on something means losing faith or belief that the thing will ever happen.  It’s an act of surrender to an enemy. You feel forced to give up and give in.

In the case of infertility, giving up is the choice someone makes when they declare that they are abandoning the fertility promises God  made. It’s a decision that infertility is incurable or unsolvable. As hopelessness swirls into every area of life and becomes a consuming power, it pulls all kinds of negative and dangerous thoughts into one’s mind. One might think that infertility is too hard for God (it’s not–Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:27). Or she may choose to think that God’s promises are not for everyone (they are — 2 Corinthians 1:20; 2 Peter 1:3-4).

I frequently hear from women who are considering giving up on the thought that they will ever conceive and give birth to a child. They feel inept, broken, forgotten by God, and are sick and tired of trying to stand up to infertility.
Keep calm--infertility and hopelessness

But I want to offer an alternative to the hopelessness. There is no need to abdicate your position of authority over infertility when you are focused on Jesus, the One who is the cure for everything. Focus is everything.  Keep your focus on the Problem-Solver instead of on the problem.

 

Decide now to continue to trust God’s promises of fertility as being solid ground to stand on. They are never shaky because God does not lie; they are not like quicksand because they are based on the Solid Rock, Jesus. His promises are His forever-settled Word— God’s Word is His bond.

 

It can be tough to continue to have hope when your faith has become weak and you feel like giving up. But that’s the time to take this essential next step:

  • Speak and sing words of God’s praise to yourself and thank Him in advance of the manifestation of His promises. Do this repeatedly, every day.

Those words will begin to bring the joy back into your situation and soon you’ll feel strong again because “the joy of the Lord is our strength!”

 

“Sometimes you want to give up, but you can’t–something deep inside you won’t let you. No white flags, no bailing out, no throwing in the towel for you. You have to keep going; you must carry on you just take the next step…and the next…and the next.” ~B. J. Gallagher

 

HOW CLOSE ARE YOU?

You may be closer than you think!

infertility and hopelessness - don't quit - you're close

 

“Keep Calm” image courtesy of Keepcalm-omatic.com

Monday’s Marinade – Don’t Quit

Posted on by Evangeline

Monday’s Marinade is provided to you as a means of “soaking yourself” in the hope-filled Word of God at the beginning of your week. Start your week by meditating about never giving up on God coming through for you. Don’t Quit! Repeatedly think about this and quietly say it to yourself.  Marinate and season your week with hope and a confident expectation of good things happening!

Here’s your spiritual marinade for this week:

Monday's Marinade Ps 27-14

How to Have Ridiculous Hope Like Abraham

Posted on by Evangeline

Abraham firmly believed God’s promise. Romans 4:18 (NLT) tells us how Abraham had ridiculous hope—“Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations.”

I recently read how Jewish tradition promotes that Sarah actually had no womb:

Sarai was barren, she had no child.

[Why the double phrasing?] To teach that she did not even have a place for offspring – i.e. a womb. (Rashi, citing Talmud – Yevamot 64a)

[This is an interpretation of Genesis 11:30.]

Ridiculous hope
Photo courtesy of Michal Marcol/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

But even when there was no reason to hope — Sarah had been barren for decades and he was nearly 100 years old — Abraham kept believing that they would have a child. Their predicament made hope seem nonsensical, even laughable. But Abraham kept hoping.

This wasn’t the first time Abraham had experienced and maintained ridiculous hope. God told him to leave his extended family (very unusual in that culture) and go to a different land, promising him that he would be blessed and become great.  Abraham made a decision to step out and find out. The promises came true as Abraham trusted God.

I think Abraham was an outstanding example of how to have ridiculous hope in the midst of infertility. He opened himself to hear from God. He trusted what God said. So much so, that he changed his name from Abram, which means “exalted father”  , to Abraham, which means “father of many nations.” Imagine hearing other people call him father of multitudes when he and Sarah didn’t even have one child!  Think of the ridicule he must have experienced.  His ridiculous hope required having faith in what God had promised, trusting that what God had promised would indeed come to pass. Repeatedly hearing that description of himself , through others calling his name, surely must have built Abraham’s faith (faith comes by hearing–Romans 10:17).

There was another factor that increased Abraham’s hope for a child and faith in God’s promise. We learn in Romans 4:20  (YLT) that he “was strengthened in faith, having given glory to God.” The act of praising God, acknowledging His power and honoring Him by the words that Abraham spoke, helped to build up his faith.

Abraham had ridiculous hope in God, viewing Him as the only One who could give him all that he desired.

What will it take for you to live each day having ridiculous hope?

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?

 

 

FINISH–My Final F-Word for 2014

Posted on by Evangeline

Finish.

The word “finish” carries such a powerful meaning.  It implies completion of a task. It brings something to an end.

God the Father talked about how He finished things:

“Heaven and Earth were finished, down to the last detail.” ~Genesis 2:1 MSG

“What’s more, I am with you, and will protect you wherever you go, and will bring you back safely to this land; I will be with you constantly until I have finished giving you all I am promising.” ~Genesis 28:15 TLB

Jesus was the ultimate example of someone who knew how to FINISH things. He fulfilled His mission of showing love to all humanity and satisfying every requirement of the Law on our behalf. He did as the Father had asked Him to do– He brought grace and truth. Jesus said it Himself, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Because He finished strong, the salvation process is complete, once and for all.

And now, Holy Spirit lives within every believer so that we too can fulfill our God-given mission and finish strong.

For the last half of 2014, I’ve been concentrating on one F-word each month. It all began in December 2013 when I felt as if I wasn’t focused enough on important things so that I could finish them. I attended a retreat in January 2014 where I realized there was an F-word I needed to eliminate from my life: FEAR. This retreat helped me to key in on the things that mattered most to me and to know that I was already empowered by God to “get ‘er done.” One of the exercises at the retreat was to write a word on a smooth stone that reflected what I wanted to do in 2014. My word was “FINISH.” I wanted to finish strong in 2014!

F-word--Finish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the first six months of 2014, as I worked to eliminate the fear, I was able to FINISH a huge goal– plan and host a retreat for women who were struggling with infertility. The retreat resulted in establishing a relationship with one of the attendees that has been such a blessing because she is now pregnant! As a result of her pregnancy, I am now writing a book specifically crafted for women who have overcome infertility. There’s a difference in the experience in the overcomer’s pregnancy versus that of other women who did not have that struggle. This book will provide the encouragement needed to stay focused on God’s words of love and to FINISH the pregnancy. I’m so glad that I finished hosting the fertility retreat and am moving forward in finishing the book.

As I’ve done in previous months, I wrote my thoughts about this month’s F-word on an index card so I can keep it in front of me on my desk:

F-Words--FinishSo as 2014 draws to a close, I’m thankful for all that God has brought me through this year and empowered me to finish. I’ll host another fertility retreat in May 2015  (I hope you’ll join me) because I’m even more confident that when He gives us a vision, He also gives us the provision to FINISH.

What is one thing for which you need His provision in order to finish strong?