You Who Never Bore a Child

Sometimes, the old prophecies come true, right before our very eyes. Isaiah wrote millennia ago: "'Sing barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,' says the LORD." (Isaiah 54:1).

I have 2 children to raise. Much of my time and energy goes to training, influencing, shaping, loving these 2. My friends who have no biological or adopted children, in contrast, have hundreds of children. One friend, a pastor, I have watched struggle with the reality that she would never bear a child. She wanted very much to marry, to raise a family. She wanted even more to please God, and his call on her life moved her in directions away from marriage and parenthood. It broke her heart for a time, and I grieved with her, even while I watched her pour out her life to help the youth in the church we served together.

Another, a missionary, is married but she and her husband have made a conscious choice not to have children. She has never shared with me those discussions. I don't know her heart. But I do know that hundreds of families are stronger, more secure, and more aware of God's love because of her work. She is able to serve in her mission with unreserved passion, because she does not have to hold some back for those who wait at home.

In Old Testament times, these women would have been considered cursed. Children were social security, they were future, they were signs of status and bonds to cement marriages. In many ways, they are all those things today. Some women so yearn for children that they do not feel whole without them. Others find marriages breaking under the weight of unrequited hope. I have counseled 'barren' women so sure that God has somehow cursed them for past mistakes and decisions that they feel utterly abandoned by God.

Yet Isaiah proclaims the opposite as he reassures the people of God and offers hope of a Messiah who will offer God's forgiveness, mercy and blessing. This may not be reassuring to the woman who sorrows for a child that never comes. Syncing our lives to what happens when it is not what we asked for is a surrender that doesn't come easily to anyone, let alone the woman who has convinced herself that God or her own past has cursed her life.

Isaiah's prophecy is an invitation to see things through the eyes of a Messiah yet to come, to envision a world turned on its head by the arrival of God's Chosen One. When I look through Jesus, I see my women friends have many more children than I could ever hope to raise. Nieces and nephews receive their love, grace and attention. Youth and adults where they serve are trained and influenced, enveloped in love and given a future.

To be sure, my so-called barren friends do not take children home with them at night (very often). No infant kicks them from the inside, or calls them 'Mama.' There is grief in that for those who long for it. I don't mean to belittle the desires and hopes that life sometimes dashes for us, though I pray that those who bear heavy senses of cursedness will find their hearts and minds lifted by truth.

As Christians, let's celebrate these 'barren' women of God! Let's thank them for their ministries, let's be sure they don't lack for thanks and hugs and smiles and friends. Though Isaiah's words are metaphor, they are also very real and true. Children do not make women blessed. God does, and all too often, his blessings flow through women who offer God their desires, their present and future, their time and energy to bless the world.