Last week was a rather challenging week for me. I spent much of the week having to keep track of my thoughts, taking each one captive. We started treatments again and my brain was all over the place. By the end of the week I was nearly overtaken by fear. Things felt too familiar and I was fearful I would experience loss once again. It was at this point that the Lord truly displayed His love and mercy by surrounding me with women that recognized where I was, came up beside me to hold me up, and spoke God's word to me and over me. God is so good! He knew my need and He tenderly met it. By the end of church on Saturday much of the fear was gone and I knew that whatever happened it would be ok because my hope is in the Lord, my hope IS the Lord and He is all I truly need. To those of you that helped me through this time (you know who you are), thank you for allowing the Lord to use you to minister to my hurting and fearfilled heart. You are precious to me.
As one of these ladies prayed with me she shared a portion of scripture I had not read for awhile. I'm not going to share it here right now because it felt like a personal gift from the Lord that I need to treasure in private for the time being. The portion she shared did get me thinking about God's heart towards women that have walked the same path I have been walking. The bible is filled with women in the old and new testaments that have experienced the struggles I am now facing. Hannah, Sarah, the woman that touched Christ's robe, Elizabeth. It tells me something about God's heart that He would use these examples to show His mercy, provision, healing, faithfulness and love. Those times that I feel alone and abandoned, all I need to do is look in His word and see the truth.
I want to dig even deeper into these portions of scripture. Does anyone know of any good commentaries or books that focus on the scriptures featuring these women specifically?
3 comments:
I don't know any specific to these women, but have you ever checked out www.crosswalk.com? There's usually great commentaries on there.
Hi, I came across your blog via my friend Angie's blog (Flibbertigibberish).
I just wanted to encourage you! I had a huge struggle with infertility before God answered our prayers- it took him what I considered a long time, but through consistent, persistent prayer, I was completely healed of severe endometriosis and all of my fertility problems—and he gave me a child! That child was born in Dec. 2003 and will be 4 in a few days...and this year, he gave us another child, born in September. He does answer the cry of the infertile woman! I think the key is for us to believe- not only that he can do this, but that he *wants to* do it for us.
During my struggle with infertility, I focused greatly on these women in the Bible, too. So many instances of women who couldn't have a baby, who were healed & touched by God and then had the baby they'd prayed for. I think those stories are there, in part, to encourage women like us to believe that he cares very much about the desire in our hearts to be mothers, to bear children.
Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of women with you that you may not know about- I didn't know about them until my bout with infertility, when I believe God led me to their stories.
There is the Shunammite woman: 2 Kings 4:8-17.
And Samson's mother: Judges 13
And then there is always Psalm 113:9.
Don't give up, even though I know you're weary. God still makes mothers out of infertile women! Keep praying; keep believing.
That blogger profile doesn't work anymore...my blog address is http://www.deathway.com/msunderstood in case you're wondering who the heck I am. :)
Although I haven't blogged in a while due to being way too busy with the new baby.
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