Tag: bible verses for infertility

An Adoption Story of Hope

Posted on by Evangeline

I subscribe to a number of emailed newsletters that help me become a better author, a better business woman, and especially, a better person. I recently received one from life coach, Valorie Burton. In it, she shared exciting and encouraging news—along with her struggles of conceiving over the age of 40 and a miscarriage. This is her personal story of how her dream to become a mommy has come true. I share it, with her permission, because I think it will encourage you to not give up hope, even if adoption is is not the path to parenthood that you choose.

 Valorie’s Story:

My lifelong dream has come true. Our lives have changed dramatically and beautifully in the last month. Since marrying my husband in 2013, I’ve been a “bonus” mom to two sweet, energetic, loving little girls. And now, God has seen fit to expand our family with a beautiful baby boy we’ve been privileged to adopt!  That’s right. I’ve become a mommy.

If you’ve read my books or followed me for a while, you know this has been a dream deferred, but I have never given up on the vision I’ve sensed deep in my spirit for marriage and family.  At times, I have felt frustrated, helpless, and discouraged, but I refused to give up hope. I could not.  To give up hope would be to give up on God. As I stand in the midst of this vision of love that has unfolded, I feel led to share my lessons learned so I can encourage you to persevere towards your own vision – whatever that vision might be:   

  1. Keep hoping.
    Without hope, there is no vision. When you stop hoping, you start settling. Be relentless and focused. At times, it may even appear you are delusional to keep hoping. So what! Keep believing in your vision and make your decisions, whether about relationships, finances, career, that honor your ultimate goal.
      
  2. Don’t let disappointments become your destination.
    Separation and divorce. Navigating the tumultuous dating landscape of Atlanta. Trying to conceive over 40. Miscarrying twins. All have been my reality in the last seven years. Each could have become a bitter destination, except for this: I refused to see my disappointments as a permanent destination.  Some were devastating detours. I had to stop journeying for a while and recover. But I made a decision to be better and not bitter after each one. I made a decision not to get stuck staring at the obstacles before me, but to look up and remember the vision in my heart. That vision compelled me to keep hoping and keep moving forward.
      
  3. Be open to a path that looks different than you expected.
    It is easy to be rigid about how your dream must come together. Don’t. Be open to divine orchestration. Let go of your need to control the “how” of your vision so you can stay focused on the “why” – which leads me to this last point …
      
  4. Stay focused on the PURPOSE of your vision more than the excitement of it.
    At points, I began to doubt whether I would ever become a mother, and before that, whether I would ever find the kind of love I believe in.  A transformational message emerged from my doubt, though. I asked myself, “What if you never marry?” “What if you never have a child?” And I answered my “What if” questions. Here’s what I realized:  The world would not come to an end, so I better learn to be happy regardless of the outcome! If I didn’t get married or have children, I would live my life single without children and I would choose to have an incredible life. There are many women I greatly admire who are single without children – and happy, purposeful, loved and loving. So then, what would be the purpose of marriage and family in my life?  That is the question I needed to answer for myself.  I don’t believe that having a child is about me becoming a mom. I believe it is about having the blessed opportunity to nurture and grow a child God has seen fit to place in my care.  What an honor. It is about him, not me.  And perhaps that is the shift in thinking that shifted my life and brought us this amazing, perfect little boy for us. 

A Call to Action for you:  Don’t give up on God (Genesis 18:14). Stay connected to Him through His promises found in His Word. Hear His quiet voice within you giving you wisdom about how to proceed along your path. You can find more encouragement in A Seed of Hope: God’s Promises of Fertility.

A Seed of Hope
A Seed of Hope: God’s Promises of Fertility by Evangeline Colbert

Infertility – Where Does Most of Your Help Come From?

Posted on by Evangeline

Psalm 121 [NKJV] opens by asking, “Where does my help come from?”Infertility - change your focus - looking unto Jesus

There were countless times when I wondered who was available to help me during my struggle with infertility. Doctors could only do so much in their role as a medical professional. Friends could sympathize but they couldn’t truly understand what I was going through.They had not experienced falling into the pit of infertility. Family members were supportive but couldn’t identify with the struggle either. My husband, even though he was kind and loving toward me, was also in the struggle and therefore  looking for support as well.

It seemed no matter where I looked, there was no one in my sphere of influence that could be the principal source of help that I needed. But, I learned that when looking for help, the quickest way to get it was to look to Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). He could identify with my physical and emotional pain. He was my Savior. He was my Champion.

He was the one who could do something about my problems— when I stopped looking at the problems and fixed my focus on Him.

Why You Need to Have a HOPE-FILLED Focus During Infertility

Posted on by Evangeline

Hope Filled FocusGod said He wants men and women to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). His desire is for humanity to produce godly, prosperous families. He loves us all so much and He wants to bless us abundantly. One of His many blessings includes having children.

Many times, when infertility (“barrenness” as it is called in the Bible) strikes a husband and wife, the couple’s focus tends to only be on their inability to reproduce. Proverbs 23:7 declares that what a person continually thinks about is what he/she becomes. This means what we put our attention to, or what we focus on the most will expand in our lives. What you think about, over and over and over again is what will manifest in your life. This suggests that focusing on your present inability to conceive will not change it.

That’s why it’s imperative that you focus on God and not on the problem of infertility. In the Bible’s account of Abraham and Sarah, Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred year old body could never father a child.” Nor was he discouraged by Sarah’s decades of infertility and completely give up on the hope of having a child with her. He focused on God’s promise to him, confident that God would make good on what He had said.

Think and meditate with confidence on His promise in Deuteronomy 7:14. Have confidence in God’s unconditional love for you. Barrenness is not what God desires for His children. Trust His Word and His love for you. Have confidence that He wants you to be fruitful. Focus on that!

“You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle.” Deuteronomy 7:14 NASB

 

Focus Friday-Gratitude Again!

Posted on by Evangeline

Here’s a quick note about gratitude.

Yes, I know I’ve had quite a few posts about gratitude lately but this theme just keeps whooshing through my mind like waves at the seashore.

I hope this repeated focus on gratitude is something that will encourage you to interrupt the stress of  your day by being grateful for some simple things. I like thanking out loud God for parking spaces close to the building I need to walk to (especially when it’s 113 degrees outside), the 7 consecutive  green lights I drove through so I could be on time, the opportunity to do a random act of kindness for someone, favor that I received from someone, etc.

Gratitude helps to lighten the emotional and mental load you carry and it gives you something to smile about.

What’s something that you can be thankful for today?

Gratitude - EV turquoise 2

Monday’s Marinade – PRAISE

Posted on by Evangeline

As you begin this week by “soaking yourself” in the hope-filled Word of God, meditate about the importance and power of praise. Praising God gives you strength! Praise is powerful enough to silence the enemy and the negativity that he brings into your thoughts.   

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

 

Here’s your spiritual marinade about Praise:

Praise

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

Focus Friday – It Takes a REAL Act of Faith

Posted on by Evangeline

Faith is believing God’s words.

Having faith in God’s promises means you allow the words in His promises to become influencers of how you think and act.

Focus on the following scripture throughout the day. It’s God’s Word and it’s what He desires us to believe. Believe it is true for your circumstances because God’s Word is Truth. Act like it is your truth.

Real Act of Faith

Monday’s Marinade – It Takes Courage to Have Hope

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 having the courage to keep your hope based on God’s promises and not your circumstances. 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 about courage for this week:

Monday's Marinade - hope and courage

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?

How to Deal with Panic Attacks

Posted on by Evangeline

panicSometimes, when we feel alarmed about an issue in our life, we can draw hasty conclusions that are wrong. Some people will even begin to suffer from panic attacks.

The Bible tells us that David experienced this. He wrote in Psalm 31:22 [NLT], “In panic I cried out, “I am cut off from the LORD!”

Infertility can make you feel that way, especially when it has lasted for a while. It’s as if God doesn’t care, like He’s purposely turned away and cut Himself off from hearing you. But that’s a deception straight from hell. The devil’s mind games and antics are always meant to make us draw away from God because he knows the solutions to our problems are ALWAYS found in drawing near to God.

David did eventually see the folly of his panic-inspired thought that he was cut off from God. He chose to draw near to God. He made a decision to encourage himself in the Lord by remembering God’s love for him. David told God, “But you heard my cry for mercy and answered my call for help.”

God passionately loves us and will never turn away or cut us off. As believers in Jesus, we can be fully confident of this in any situation. Jesus said, “And be sure of this: I am with you always.” [Matthew 28:20 NLT]

Here are a couple of Scripture passages that serve to remind you that you are loved by the only One who can do everything necessary to turn your situation around and replace your panic with peace:

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, “for you are very precious to God. Peace! Be encouraged! Be strong!” As he spoke these words to me, I suddenly felt stronger and said to him, “Please speak to me, my lord, for you have strengthened me.” ~Daniel 10:19 NLT

God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope. ~2Thessalonians 2:16 NLT

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