A Higher Purpose

May 28, 2023 | by The Fellowship

My wife and I waited for several years after getting married before we decided to start our family.  When she became pregnant, we were very excited – but then she suffered a miscarriage.  It was a very difficult experience for both of us, but we clung to our faith in God and soon decided to try again.

But this time getting pregnant was not happening as we had anticipated it would.  For more than 2½ years, my wife and I have struggled to conceive a child.  When month followed month with no results, we began to wonder if we would ever again become pregnant.

We are very familiar with the Bible saying there is a time for everything under the sun and that God‘s timing is perfect. Nevertheless, in our struggle, we very much wanted to control the outcome and have it happen in our own timing … rather than wait on the Lord.

My wife began thinking about the possibility of looking into other options like IVF.  But as we continued to pray, I truly felt the Lord tell me that we should be patient, to trust Him and seek Him alone. How often do the Scriptures emphasize waiting on the Lord because He is a faithful God! In our society of instant gratification, that is a difficult thing to do.

As the months kept passing, even turning into years, I began to see how God was growing each of us as He stretched and pruned us while we were in His waiting room. He has taught us to be patient, to celebrate other young couples and to be happy for them when their time of having babies began.  Not that this was an easy thing to do, but the Lord taught us to enjoy our time together, to grow closer as a couple, and to not worry about things that we do not have – but instead to be thankful for all the blessings He has already poured out on us.  Since the Bible is so specific about how God knows every single thing about us, even the number of hairs on our head, certainly He is very intimately acquainted with the deepest desires of our hearts.

There is nothing like a deep-seated desire that has gone unfulfilled to teach us to pray.  To really pray with all our hearts!  And to enlist our family members and close friends to also pray.  How wonderful to find peace as we praise God for His unconditional love that never lets go and to thank Him for His mercies that are new every morning.

After these years of waiting and trusting, God is so faithful! We are having a baby! Our joy is overflowing!  We are filled with gratitude and thankfulness for what God has done in our lives and even for the time that we spent in His waiting room. I can look back and see that if we had been given a child exactly when and how we wanted that to happen, it would not have been the best time or the right time for us. God‘s timing truly is perfect; His plan is always much better than ours, and He calls us to greater things. I will forever remember what God has done for us and I will be grateful, realizing that He has a higher purpose that requires time spent in the waiting room. To God be the Glory!

W. E.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. 
Psalm 130:5