Healing the Soul; Waiting for a Miracle

After blowing out the candles on my 25th birthday, I announced my wish was to start a family.  My mind was set.  Ready for this adventure!  Bring on the bibs and booties, diapers and dreams!

My race to motherhood began with great confidence and hopeful assurance.  Not once did I ever imagine I’d encounter so many roadblocks and detours on this course.  After all, infertility seemed like a foreign concept for my big, fat, French family.  Surely, my precious, little cajun granny knew nothing of infertility; she had birthed 16 children.  Sixteen.  And, her 6 daughters all had at least 4 of their own.  My mother kept up the pace with her 4.  How could this be?  Had those genes gone out of style?  Why God? When did such a natural process become an impossibility?

My clock started ticking—ticking me off!

I felt like I’d been forced to wear a scarlet letter ‘I’ for the next 5 years.  I had travelled from surgeries and fertility injections,  to lab work and negative news, all while hosting baby showers for my closest friends.  Buckled by faith, we continued to push through heartbreaking setbacks, plus 3 unsuccessful and very expensive rounds of in vitro fertilization.  I struggled at times with the truth of God’s design for my body.  I had to settle my heart:  God’s WORD was true despite the facts of our diagnoses.  We would receive the evidence of all we were hoping to possess:  pregnancy, babies, parenthood.

So consumed by disappointment, something else had emerged from deep beneath the layers of skin and bones, tissue and organs.  Memories of abandonment and “not-enough” lay silently tucked away in hidden pockets of my past. Thoughts like, “If only my mom were still alive.”  Whoosh! That silent grief of her absence would erupt unexpectedly, holding me captive to all the emotions of her death.  I was losing her all over again.  Every part of me ached to hear her reassuring voice.  I needed my mommy for this.  Then, another blow like, “Everyone I love lives in another time zone.” It was during those early, dark commutes to the Center of Reproductive Medicine that the tender love and light of Jesus would soothe and mend my soul.  He saw my brokenness and came to heal my heavy heart, all while I was clinging to the hopes of physical healing.  God had never abandoned me.  Even now, as tears fall, the Lord whispers, “I have always held you close, Amy.  Never will l leave you.”

That season of waiting proved to be a time of inner healing.  Heart, first; then, my body.  I think of the men who stopped at nothing and lowered their paralyzed friend down to Jesus through a hole they made in the roof when they couldn’t get through the crowds.  I imagine them rubbing their hands together ready to witness the miraculous.  Instead, they heard, “Your sins are forgiven.”  Really?  I’m sure heads turned. Looks were exchanged between the friends.  Jesus hadn’t overlooked the man’s body, but first, he addressed the issue of his heart. Then, of course, Jesus healed him physically.(Mark 2:3-5)

I would not have chosen the detour through infertility; however, I discovered treasures in those roadblocks along the way—those inner body experiences with Jesus.  Truly, I was “made complete because of my union with Christ” (Colossians 2:10). Where I once held only faith, I later held my miracles.  Today my evidence has grown:  their ages are 15, 11, and 10.

1. How have you experienced Jesus as your healer—physically or emotionally?
   

2. Are there any areas tucked away that need the light and life of God’s touch?
   

3. What will help you remain focused on God’s truth to heal while you are waiting?
   

 “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” (Psalm 103:2-5 ESV)

“For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.”

(Colossians 2:10-11 NLT)

“And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near [Jesus} because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.  And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’” (Mark 2:3-5 NLT)

“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11 ESV)

Amy Weatherford

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