Hi all mummies, i'm so envious of u all here, having the blessings of God in your tummies right now..haven't come into this thread for awhile cos i still don't belong here..and i'm feeling somewhat emo again today, although i just came back from a holiday trip with my hubby last week..my birthday is coming in 2 weeks time and the year 2015 is coming soon too..and i still haven't got my baby in my arms yet..i've been waiting for it since end 2011 and it's a super tough and long journey that sometimes i wish to give up and end my life thinking that my whole life and future is gone without having a family of my own..i find that i'm increasingly feeling unhappy for each passing year and i seriously dunno what will my future with hubby be like..i find it so hard to trust God year by year....
@the_fruitful_one HUGS to you and I understand how you feel as I've been in the same boat. Please don't even think of ending your life as it is precious and belongs to God.
I can understand your struggle to trust God. When my repeated attempts to conceive failed and failed, I too felt my trust and faith in God slipping away, becoming more cynical, bitter and depressed. I cried out to God everyday and asked why He seemingly abandoned me.
Although I find it difficult to write my personal story to share with others like you, I know this is what the Holy Spirit wants me to do. So here I go.
I was trudging along the road of depression and despair until I had a heart-to-heart talk with a childless but godly Christian couple. The background to this is that several well-meaning Christians with good intentions tried to comfort me by saying, "Just continue to have faith and pray, God will surely gift you a baby." However that only resulted in me questioning my faith in God, "If I fail to conceive time and again, does it mean that I don't have enough faith in God? That I'm not praying enough?" These doubts in my relationship with God caused me to be even more depressed with no glimpse of any hope, peace and comfort that the bible says the Prince of Peace would bring to me.
Back to the conversation with the childless but godly couple. They assured me that the sign of great faith is not believing that God will grant me whatever wish I want, even if it's as noble a wish as having a child. Although the bible has stories of faithful women conceiving after earnest prayers, the bible does not offer a blanket universal promise to all Christian women that He will gift them children. This is important and is really unlike the universal promise of salvation and justification that is offered to all believers. My dear sister, the sign of great faith is, while I continue to express my deepest wish and pray for Him to fulfill it, I need to say and believe in words and action, "Not my will, but yours, be done. May I rejoice in being your follower and a recipient of your deep love, Lord, even if you don't grant me my wish". We need to recognize that God is not obliged to give us children because He really does not owe us anything. He will give us children if it is in His sovereign will that we should serve Him as parents. But this path is not for everyone to take. For some Christians, like this godly childless couple, God has decided that they should serve Him in another way, by having spiritual children instead of biological ones, hence they often go to poor nearby countries to serve as missionaries and to sponsor underprivileged children there. God is using them in their childless state mightily and for His glory. If He had given them biological children, their life would probably have gone on a different path and they would be unlikely to have the ability to be spiritual parents to bring the gospel to underprivileged children. We must place God's glory and will above our personal desires, as He knows what's best for us when we don't know ourselves. We may think that having children is the best path for us, but that's not necessarily the case for some of us, and only God knows this.
So after that very enlightening conversation, my depression was miraculously lifted and I was able to rest assured in God's love. In fact, I totally SURRENDERED my will to have a child, to God's greater will for me. I SURRENDERED my hopes, dreams, life and everything into the arms of God. Every day that I'm living and throughout my fertility treatments, I always said to God,
"Not my will, but yours, O Lord, be done. Even if my fertility treatments fail and I'll never get a child, I will rejoice in you and love you." It was during this time of total surrender to the Lord that I felt the beautiful peace from God return to me again, and I never felt an ounce of anxiety throughout my fertility treatments. And then God showed me His power by enabling me to finally conceive. I am convinced that God wanted me to have the right attitude to Him before He would grant me the gift of a child. Even now, with the growing baby in my tummy, I know that this child is entirely the work of God and that the child belongs to Him, not to me. I'm only granted the temporary privilege to take care of the child for as long as God decides.
Dear sister, my words may sound harsh to you as I do not want to offer you the possibly false hope that you will most definitely have a child. No one can give you that guarantee of a child or speak on God's behalf that you will have a child, except by God revealing His will for you Himself. But I want you, in your current season of facing your unfulfilled dream and not being sure if God will gift you a child, to continue to have the right attitude in your relationship to God. I want you to continue to experience joy from being a precious child of God, and not to allow your unfulfilled dream to take away the joy that is promised to you. I know this is more difficult said than done, but with God anything is possible. He will not want you to be deprived of the joy that comes with being His child.
Lastly, please don't even think that not having a child means you do not have a family of your own. A biblical family unit consists of husband and wife. You don't need children to form a family. Which is why in Genesis, God says that a man shall leave his parents and join with his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And God declares that this is very GOOD. And this was long before children came into the picture. Just like the godly childless couple I know who are doing powerful work for God as a family unit.
I'd be happy to chat further if you'd like. Just PM me.
