The Fruit of Waiting

Note: This was originally a guest post for an organization called The Verity Fellowship, which is no longer active.

For me, becoming a mother was both the most beautiful and painful thing that has ever happened to me.

No, I don’t have a birth story to share with you. At least, not the kind you’re thinking of. I became a mother through adoption after being unable to conceive. Instead of carrying our son in my womb for forty weeks, I bore the burden of barrenness in my heart for more than four years. The waiting seemed endless, and, at times, I felt forgotten by the Lord. But, God was at work--in my heart and in my circumstances--as I waited. Looking back, I know that I would endure the heartbreak all over again because my son was worth the wait. The wait was also worthwhile because of the godly fruit that God produced in me: humility, gratitude, and joy.

Humility

Early on in my journey to motherhood, God had to teach me a lot about humility. When my husband and I decided that we were ready to start trying for a baby, I jumped into planning. I spent hours researching everything related to conception and pregnancy. I was ready for it to happen as soon as possible! But the months dragged on and the strip never turned pink. I became obsessed with trying every supplement and strategy for conception that the internet had to offer. I put my trust in research and my hope in the plan that I had made for how my life was “supposed” to turn out. I struggled with bitterness and anger toward God because he wasn’t answering my prayers the way I wanted him to.

After close to a year and a half of trying, we were referred to a fertility specialist. There were lots of tests and procedures, but the monthly rollercoaster of hope and crushing disappointment took its toll. Finally, we got to the point where we knew that becoming parents was more important to us than becoming pregnant. We felt God leading us to discontinue treatment and move forward with domestic adoption. I released control and accepted that adoption was where God was leading our family. I had to humbly trust that God’s plans for our family were infinitely better than mine.

Gratitude

Waiting also taught me to approach God with gratitude instead of entitlement. As we struggled over those four long years, I was often tempted to doubt God’s goodness toward me and to focus only on my unfulfilled longings. I had taken my good and godly desire for motherhood and turned it into an idol that I treasured more than Christ. At my worst moments, when all of our friends were getting pregnant and our nursery was still empty, I felt as though God’s goodness was for other people and not for me. Over the two years that we worked through the adoption process, twelve moms decided that, no, we weren’t the right parents to adopt her child. I wondered how God’s goodness fit with my breaking heart. But, God was working in me. He opened my eyes to the ways that he was already providing for my needs while we waited for him to bring a child into our family. My husband, and our family, friends, and church were all blessings I had been taking for granted. Even simple things, like a nice meal or a sunny spring day, were reminders of God’s constant goodness to me.

Most of all, I began to realize that God’s Word overflows with evidence of his goodness to me and to all believers. The story of his justice, mercy, and compassion toward his people--to me--spills out on every page and reaches its culmination in Jesus. Through Christ, God has showered me with mercy. Because of his goodness, not mine, he poured out his wrath on his beloved Son so that he could pour out abundant love on me. I had no grounds on which to feel slighted when God did not answer my prayers for a child in the way I expected. He has already given me more than I could have ever earned on my own merit.

Joy

As I was brought low in humble gratitude before the Lord, I was overwhelmed with a sense of inexplicable joy. My long path to motherhood had emptied me of my pride and sense of entitlement. In its place there was a delight in the Lord that I had never experienced before. The Word came alive with a beauty and depth that I had never seen in it before. I still ached to be a mother. Pregnancy announcements from friends still sometimes felt like a sucker punch in the gut. Yet, the joy ( http://www.verityfellowship.org/blogarchive/2018/1/13/count-it-all-joy ) I had found in the Lord was secure, even when my circumstances seemed uncertain.

The Waiting is Over

One Sunday in August 2016, we got the call that we had been chosen by an expecting mom to adopt her unborn son. Exactly three months later, our little boy was born. God had finally answered our prayers. Or, at least, it may seem that way. Really, in his mysterious, all-knowing, all-powerful way, God had been answering our prayers all along.

Every negative pregnancy test, every “no” from a mom viewing our profile, was a part of God’s loving provision. They led us to the birth mom who chose us and the son we have now welcomed into our family. Every “no” leading up to this final “yes” led me on a powerful path of sanctification in humility, gratitude, and joy. God has given me so much more than a child to call my own; he has given me more of himself.

God heard my prayers for a child. He knew my pain and never forgot about me. That is how my husband and I settled on our son’s name: Zachariah, meaning “God has remembered.” His name is a reminder that even when things don’t go how we plan, God never forgets us. Zachariah is a sweet reminder of God’s constant faithfulness.

If you are waiting on God, trust in his faithfulness. Whatever good thing you are longing for, God has not forgotten you. He will be faithful to produce fruit in your life and draw you to Himself through your waiting.

God Remembers Us

It was the day before Thanksgiving, November 23rd. I’d just finished a workout and was about to head for the shower when my phone rang. All at once, my plans for the day (and Thanksgiving, and the weekend, and the next several weeks…) went out the window. Our adoption agency was calling to tell me that our baby boy (you know, the one due in mid-December) was coming today. 

My husband and I were suddenly plunged into the chaos of trying to catch a flight to the other side of the country on the busiest travel day of the year. We were excited to finally meet our little boy and his amazing birth mom, but there was so much to arrange and plan in such a short period of time. Birth mom and baby were both having some worrisome symptoms, so our little boy was delivered via emergency c-section before we could even leave the house for the airport. We saw the first picture of him right before we got on our flight; he was covered in tubes and wires because he’d come too early, We were happy, but worried, and more than a little overwhelmed.

The first picture we saw of our boy.

We met our son and his birth mama on Thanksgiving morning. The days and weeks that followed were full. We loved on our son’s birth mama and spent hours and hours sitting by his bed in the NICU as he gained the strength he needed to be discharged. Stuck in a strange city all the way across the country, God’s provision was evident. Frustrations were plentiful, but God mercifully provided for our physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual needs as we waited for our little boy to grow strong enough to leave the hospital, and then for permission from the government to travel home with him. After exactly three weeks, we finally made it home to Oregon with our son.

Looking back over the past few months and years, I am amazed at how God orchestrated our journey to parenthood to be one big story about how He never forgot us.

All along the way, as Jason and I dealt with infertility and then with the ups and downs of the adoption process, I struggled to hope in God. It was hard to believe that He was hearing my prayers to be a mom when the nursery was still empty. Sometimes, it seemed like He’d just forgotten. 

But, through more than four years of foiled plans and uncertainty, I’ve learned to look for evidence of God's grace in the small things, and trust that unanswered prayers don't mean that God has forgotten about me. God does not forget His people in their distress. So many stories from His Word testify to this:

• He remembered** Noah in the flood and caused the flood waters to subside (Genesis 8:1).

• He remembered Abraham, and saved his cousin, Lot, during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:29).

• He remembered Rachel (Genesis 30:22) and Hannah (1 Samuel 1:19) and allowed both women to conceive in spite of their barrenness.

• He remembered his people, Israel, and saved them from their enslavement in Egypt (Exodus 2:23-25).

That passage from Exodus 2 is a particularly poignant description of how God loves his people in their suffering, as he responds to the cries of His people during their enslavement in Egypt:

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
Exodus 2:23-25

Isn’t that beautiful? God heard them. He remembered his promises to them. He saw them. He knew their suffering.

God heard our prayers for a child and saw our grief through infertility and the long adoption process.  He was working behind the scenes for our good and His glory. He knew our pain. He always remembered us. 

That’s how we settled on our son’s name: Zachariah, “God has remembered.” To remind ourselves, and to testify to everyone, that God never forgets His people in their distress.

We are overjoyed by the abundant blessing of being Zachariah’s parents. He is a sweet reminder of God’s constant faithfulness.

**Being omnipotent and all, God can hardly forget anything. So, don't be confused when the Bible talks about God remembering something or someone. God doesn't remember like when I finally figure out where I put my missing cell phone; He remembers, never having forgotten in the first place!

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Respond

Have you ever felt forgotten by God? Where do you find reminders that God always remembers you?

Waiting Well Through Any Season

If you know anything about the long journey to parenthood my husband and I are on, you’ll understand why I was excited to read Betsy Childs Howard’s book Seasons of Waiting: Walking by Faith When Dreams are Delayed as soon as I heard about it. When I finally got a chance to sit down and read it, I ended up devouring it in just one day!

The book contains encouragement for anyone playing the waiting game. In particular, the book offers insights into five seasons of waiting: waiting for marriage, a child, healing, a home, or a prodigal. You may fit into just one of those “seasons” that she describes, or none of them. Regardless, this will be an uplifting read for anyone waiting on God. It is filled with gospel hope without guilt trips or sugar-coating.

Here are the three ideas that I found most encouraging from Howard’s book, Seasons of Waiting:

Waiting Has an Eternal Purpose

Every page of this book is filled with reassuring reminders that God always has an eternal purpose for our seasons of waiting: to make us more like Christ. For the Christian, a time of waiting is made to do away with all our notions of our ability to live independently of God: “Waiting exposes our idols and throws a wrench into our coping mechanisms. It brings us to the end of what we can control and forces us to cry out to God. God doesn’t waste our waiting. He uses it to conform us to the image of his Son (16).” Our seasons of waiting draw us into deeper relationship with God himself, which is infinitely more valuable than anything we are waiting for. “God wants to give you a richer, deeper experience of himself that is more precious than the thing he has withheld from you. God won’t waste your waiting.” (92).

Pain May Be a Part of Waiting Well

Howard doesn’t ignore the deep pain experienced by those who are in a season of waiting. Although Christians should find contentment in God through all circumstances, pain may still be a part of the waiting process: “a persistent longing does not mean that you are indulging in sinful discontentment. The same Paul who wrote that he had learned to be content in every circumstance wrote that he had “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” (Rom. 9:2) when he considered his fellow Jews who had rejected the gospel. Waiting well doesn’t mean waiting without pain (19).” We don’t need to feel guilty when waiting feels painful at times. We can be content, full of faith, and rest in God’s provision and still deeply experience the pain of unfulfilled hopes.

God Provides Grace for the Wait, One Day at a Time

Seasons of waiting can drag on and on. When you’re in the midst of it, the thought of waiting another month, year, decade, or lifetime is horribly overwhelming and defeating. Seasons of Waiting cautions the reader to approach God for fresh grace daily. “It’s a great feeling when you can stock up on food and paper products at a wholesale store and know you won’t have to go back for months. But God doesn’t allow us to stock up on his grace. He gives it to us one day at a time” (88). God will provide enough grace for each day as it comes through, especially through his Word.

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I really can't recommend this book to you enough! If you, like me, struggle to wait on God with faith and patience, I’m sure you will enjoy this uplifting read!

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Respond

What encouraging books have you read lately?