The Exclamation Point of My Life
Many years ago I spent some time studying Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Samson’s mother, and Elizabeth in the Bible.
Their connection? Infertility is part of their story.
That study has impacted my journey and my writing a lot– but one particular part was (what I would call) “the exclamation point” on my wrestling with God over my infertility.
I wrote this observation on a blue sticky note and it’s still there in my old Bible, the edge that stuck out now frayed and tattered, but the words readable.
I was meditating on the verse in Hebrews 11 that says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.”
The first part of my observation was just a bullet-point list:
- received power to conceive
- was too old
- considered him faithful
Then an interesting thought:
It doesn’t say she received power because she believed she would have a baby against all odds. It says she believed God was faithful. These are two distinct things that overlapped in her life but don’t always overlap in our lives.
I wrote my conclusion along the edge of the sticky note.
I don’t know if I will have a baby. My belief is not in my body’s ability to conceive or not. But I DO believe God is faithful. I do. He is. And to this truth I will cling: God has been, is, and will continue to be faithful.
And it was there I rested.
Oh, I went over it all repeatedly. I shared a lot of that journey here in posts like these:
- Is God Big Enough to Give Me a Baby?
- But Why Does She Get Babies?
- Will You Be Faithful from the Sidelines?
But in the end– this was the completion of each sentence.
I believe God is faithful.
End of story.
—
We know more to my personal story now. We know this tiny Mary Katherine surprised us all. We know that after years of saying, “With or without, You are good,” to the Lord– and living in the without, God surprised us with the experience of believing His goodness with the baby we’d dreamed of for so many years.
And the part that settles me and fills me and encourages me– is that my journey still carries the same exclamation point.
God! Is! Faithful!
Same story. Another season. New areas of wrestling.
But God doesn’t change.
And that’s my testimony.