Longing for Motherhood: Holding On to Hope in the Midst of Childlessness by Chelsea Patterson Sobolik

Author:Chelsea Patterson Sobolik
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2018-03-12T04:00:00+00:00

HOPE IS A CHOICE

The winter after my diagnosis was hard. My heart felt as cold as the weather, and hope was the furthest thing from my mind. I didn’t feel like being hopeful, in fact, I felt quite the opposite. My heart quickly tumbled into despair, and I remained there for a long time. But as I wallowed in my pain, hurt, and bitterness, I realized that I wasn’t getting any better. The grieving process is incredibly important, but I wasn’t in any kind of process. I was stuck. I was lying motionless in my sorrow. Nothing was propelling me forward. Eventually I decided I didn’t want to live like that. Barrenness will always be part of my story, but I had to make a choice: was I going to let my circumstances control my life, or was I going to begin to live wholeheartedly and hopefully in the midst of my sorrow?

The journey toward hope often begins with desperation. May we take our cue from David, who did not hold back in pouring out his heart to God: “I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD” (Ps. 40:1–3). It can be so easy to allow your pain to overshadow everything in your life, but it is possible to choose hope.

In his book Spiritual Depression, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones discusses the importance of talking to your soul and of instructing your soul toward hope and toward healing. In fact, he said that the main art in the matter of spiritual living is knowing how to handle yourself. The psalmists give us an excellent example of what this looks like, and we can echo their words, “Why are you downcast, O my soul?” Lloyd-Jones instructs us on how to handle our souls and says that we should remind ourselves to “hope in God” instead of muttering in a “depressed, unhappy way.” But we can’t stop there. He says we must go on to remind ourselves “who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.’”3

Throughout the Bible, and throughout the ages, Christians have had to remind themselves of things they know to be true. There’s a reason we’re so often compared to sheep in the Bible: we’re restless creatures, prone to wander, and with a great need for a shepherd.4 We desperately need the Lord walking before us, beside us, and behind us, shepherding our hearts and our lives.

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