One Lady's Opportunity to Grow

After a second miscarriage, Susan often asked "Why, Lord?" God gave her the assurance of His love in Psalm 62:11, 12: "One thing God has spoken two things have I heard: that you O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord are loving. Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done."

Yet each time she attended a baby shower or someone announced that she was pregnant, she felt as if a knife went through her heart. She then would turn to God and find comfort.

After ten years of marriage, she and her husband did what the experts recommend. They mourned the loss of the biological child they wanted, but never had. They symbolically buried their imagined child, grieved their loss, and moved on.

For some years Susan thought she lacked faith or really didn't want children. Perhaps God was punishing her. One day she heard an infertile woman share that she wondered if God were punishing her by making her infertile. Then the Lord spoke to her from Luke 1:6-7 concerning Elizabeth and Zechariah, parents of John the Baptist. They were both righteous and barren.

Susan felt as if a weight dropped off her. It was not because of her wickedness that she had no children.

Instead of focusing on what she didn't have, Susan used her time, energies, talents, and gifts to serve God. She saw her infertility and miscarriages as opportunities to grow in trials and see them from God's perspective.

Dear Lord, give us Your perspective regarding our difficulties so they will produce the holiness in our lives You intend.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance" (James 1:2-3).

Aletha