Today’s post is a guest post from Ellie. Enjoy!
A thought struck me today. It came during my morning prayer, the time I spend with God each day. This particular morning was different, however, because I had just found out that yet another one of my friends was pregnant. Now, pregnancy is a joyous, beautiful thing, and while I was legitimately happy for my friend, those of us who have dealt with infertility know that nothing can remind us about our own empty wombs as deeply and as painfully as seeing another pregnant woman, especially a close loved one or friend. Needless to say, I let my newfound despair infiltrate my prayer time. I cried. I asked Him why, why, why me? I expressed that I was angry, jealous, that I did not understand.
And then quite suddenly, a new thought entered my mind. It was a perspective I had never taken on before, but it almost instantly dried my tears and eased my pain. I am completely convinced it came directly from God, that he placed it in my head as an intended comfort for me in a time of need.
Did you know that as women, we are born with approximately 2 million eggs? Or that men, who produce roughly 525 billion sperm cells in their lifetime, shed at least a billion of those every month? I thought about those staggering numbers and realized that any one of those tiny sperm combined with any one egg would produce a different outcome…or in other words, a totally different child. Think of all the endless possibilities and combinations!
It gives me immense comfort to think that God is going to give me my child, the one which He will knit together in my womb (Psalm 139:13) especially for me and my husband, when the right sperm and the egg meet. He has a perfect child in mind, the one that will fit in just right according to His plan for my life and for my future child’s life. For some people, that time comes sooner rather than later (think of all those couples you know who became pregnant only a few short months after the wedding!), but for others of us, perhaps it takes a little longer. There are, I’m sure, multiple reasons for this; we could sit for hours contemplating God’s plan or coming up with reasons as to why growing our family is taking what seems to us like forever. But it certainly helps me to think that one of these times, a time only God knows, the right sperm and egg are going to meet.
But of course, there is also a chance that may not happen, and I understand this. Not everyone dealing with infertility will be able to conceive. And if that is the case, I also take comfort in the fact that my perfect child is out there, and that he or she will be brought into my family not through conception but through the beautiful gift of adoption.
Your will be done, Lord!
Ellie Barbee is a writer, children’s book illustrator, runner and military wife. She has a Bachelors degree in Early Childhood Education and dreams of one day becoming a mom! After a 3-year-long struggle with an eating disorder and exercise addiction which led to a new, additional battle with infertility, she has found a passion in supporting women working through similar situations, and is particularly knowledgeable about hypothalamic amenorrhea and the female athlete triad.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
If you’re looking for more encouragement during infertility, be sure to check out my book, 31 Days of Prayer During Infertility.
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