Everyday Grace for Mothers

Surrendering to God’s Will

The words above were spoken by Hannah, who went through an incredible amount of grief when she was desperate to become a mama. Her husband knew her heartache, so he’d give her double portions to sacrifice to God at the temple. Yet year after year she would remain barren. This poor girl was even provoked by other women to the point that Hannah could not even eat.

She wept so bitterly while she was praying that others thought she was drunk. However, she wasn’t drinking. She was begging God that if He would only give her a son, she would give him back to the Lord to serve at the temple. Finally, the Lord “remembered her” and she conceived her son, who was Samuel. When he was weaned, she brought him back to the temple to spend his life serving the Lord as she had promised.

I struggled with this story for a long time. So, Hannah cried and prayed, and God gave her a son. Well, good for her. I had grieved and wept bitterly. A lot. I had prayed and been faithful. Yet, I lost two babies God knit together in my womb.

Maybe someone you know is going through the same thing. Maybe you have been there yourself. I was there for a long time, and I was angry! My spirit struggled with that, too. Is it even okay to be angry with God? Well, people in the Bible like David and Job got angry and cried out to Him in anguish, and they were blessed in the end. However, that wasn’t their only commonality. They also praised Him through it.

Once I resolved to surrender this part of my broken heart and praise Him through my grief and pain, my outlook changed. God wasn’t denying me a chance to be a mama. Maybe He was simply giving me a chance to be a mama to a child born to another woman. If that was His will for me, so be it. Either way, I could say, “I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him.” My heart was finally at peace. —DJ

Heavenly Father, help us surrender to Your perfect will for us.

With Child

I didn’t have to look at it twice, the double lines were so vivid. But I couldn’t stop staring at the little pregnancy stick that told me my whole world was about to change. Looking down at my flat tummy, it didn’t look like anything had happened. But I trusted the test and began preparing for the future.

For months, though, my stomach stayed curiously thin. If it weren’t for the morning nausea and the periodic doctor visits that allowed me to hear my baby’s heartbeat, I would have thought it was all a mistake. I couldn’t feel the baby inside, and I didn’t see any growth in my waistline. But at my five-month visit, all doubts disappeared. As the technician placed the ultrasound on my abdomen, I saw with my own eyes the miracle growing inside me.

It wasn’t long after that when I began to feel her. The swish of her legs as she kicked beneath my ribs. At times it felt like she was doing somersaults inside my now very swollen abdomen which rocked and reeled with all the inner activity. No question, something very alive was inside—someone whose life was intertwined with mine. It was intimacy and connection at the deepest human level, a mystery of God growing inside me.

In many ways, physical pregnancy is a spiritual picture of the miracle of life God creates in every person who puts their faith in Christ. When we surrender to His Lordship, He places His Holy Spirit—the Seed of Christ—into our very souls to produce the life of Christ in us. At first, we might not notice much change. But something we can’t see with our eyes is happening inside us. God is forming Christ in us, and He has promised to complete the work He has started.

As believers, we can’t cause our growth any more than an expectant mother can design her baby. But we can trust God’s promises. And we can fix our eyes on our heavenly Father who gives us the grace we need from His Word and Spirit to bring forth the life of His Son through fragile, flawed people like us. —JG

Father, may the Spirit of Your Son be fully formed in me!

This Is Not What I Planned

For some women, pregnancy came easily. Maybe even too easily! My bestie planned her pregnancy down to the year and month she wanted to conceive so the baby would come while she was home from her teaching job in the summer. And it did!

However, it doesn’t usually happen that way. Some friends struggled with infertility and finally adopted. One friend thought she didn’t want a family, but married a man who had children from a previous marriage, and she is an amazing stepmom. Some have grieved over a stillbirth or lost an older child.

Mine was a mix of the above. After two miscarriages, I just didn’t know if having a child of my own was in the cards for me. I was crushed! Luckily, I found an extraordinary doctor who helped me through high-risk pregnancies, several surgeries, a necessary preterm delivery, and a cancer scare the day I found out I was pregnant with my fourth. I prayed every day that the cancerous cells wouldn’t grow and that I would survive to raise the baby I was carrying.

A few weeks after he was delivered, I had surgery. My chances of conceiving and carrying to full term again could be slim and maybe risky. But three years later, I gave birth to my fifth, and five years after that, I became a stepmother to my sixth. God had a beautiful plan for me, but it was not my plan at all!

Sometimes our lives do not even resemble the plans we’ve made for our family. Rest assured that no matter what path God puts us on to motherhood, His grace is sufficient: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV). —DJ

God, I trust You. Give me peace on my journey through motherhood.

Wonder in Waiting

Do you remember nights before Christmas as a child? Weeks of waiting crescendo with so much anticipation and excitement about what is going to happen the next day. I couldn’t understand at all why my parents weren’t as eager as us kids to get the day going, but I’d wait dutifully in my room, straining to hear them walking down the hall to come get us.

It wasn’t until college that I experienced waiting of a different kind. Having met the man I wanted to marry, I still had three years of school to finish before we’d be ready. While we enjoyed our dates together, we couldn’t help but long for the day when we wouldn’t have to part in the evening, when we would finally be together for the rest of our lives.

After marriage, though, I encountered the marathon of waiting: bearing children. Nine (really ten, but who’s counting?) long months of hoping, planning, preparing, and praying. Why couldn’t God make all the good things I wanted to come faster?

As I have grown older and experienced more of life, God has begun to show me some of the secrets behind what I perceive as His slowness. When I focus on my goals and fulfilling my desires, I forfeit this moment’s beauty. While God does have good plans in store for each of us, they are not just “out there, someday” as our minds might think. They are also right now, in this moment of waiting, if we will direct our eyes and hearts to perceive it.

Relational depth isn’t a destination, it’s a process that develops even in the mundane. While we wait for the laundry to dry, for our husbands to respond, for our finances to improve, for our babies to be born—and later for them to grow up into Jesus—our Savior stays with us. Learning to recognize and rely on His presence and grace in the middle of each moment is our purpose in that place and time. As we realize that our relationship with Him is our day’s agenda, our souls empty of discontent and the manic drive toward anything less than Him. At last, our pace slows and Scriptures about “waiting on the Lord” start to make sense.

In the waiting, we encounter Jesus. And in the end we see Him face-to-face. Isn’t He worth the wait? —JG

Lord, still my frantic soul and teach me to savor the time waiting with You.

Unexpected Blessings