And God Remembered Us
Back in January, I had just returned from studying in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks when I realized that the text I was preaching on was going to be very difficult for me. My wife and I have struggled with infertility for a number of years after having our second son. Like so many others whose plans for children have gone unfulfilled, we were working out how to trust God even when we didn’t understand what he was doing in our lives.
So, it was with this experience that I came to the first chapter of the Book of Samuel. The story is about an infertile woman named Hannah who pleads with God for a son. It says that in response to her prayers, “God remembered Hannah” and gave her a son who would become Israel’s last judge. I love the story and was actually pretty excited to preach most of it, but I knew that I was going to have to talk about infertility. This made me kind of sick. I could just imagine how my wife would feel listening to me talk about God answering this woman’s prayer when he hasn’t done that for us. Even worse, I did not want to add salt to the wounds of all those couples in our church who were praying and pleading with God for a child, but the only response they were receiving was silence. So, I found it difficult to preach that weekend, but also very encouraging. I thought, “Maybe God will remember us after all these years. Maybe my Jeanne will be another Hannah.”
And with that I prayed and asked God for a baby. Fast forward five weeks and picture my wife coming out from the bathroom, pregnancy test in hand, wiping tears of astonishment and joy from her eyes as she tells me that she is expecting our third child. Since then she has been sick as a dog most days and very tentative about whether she would miscarry, but she is fourteen weeks along this week and I am writing to tell you that God has remembered us. Pretty cool, eh?
#1 from April on May 05, 2009
Hey Great News Jeff and Jeanne! I’ll keep you both in my prayers.
One more thing.
This new website is absolutely great!
I just finished reading all the bios and was now looking through the blog.