When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden by Sandra Glahn

Author:Sandra Glahn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kregel Publications

Is God Really in Control?

Jesus calmed the sea, raised Lazarus from the grave, cast out demons, turned water into wine, and fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish, to name a few of His miracles. In response to those who believe that God allows evil because He’s powerless to do anything about it, we would point out that they must not be describing the God who revealed Himself in His Son.

Specifically relating to infertility, we find in Genesis 29:31 that “when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb” (KJV). We see from this and numerous other passages that God has power to allow and prevent conception. On more than one occasion we find that God has chosen to open and close wombs in specific and supernatural ways. In 1 Samuel 1:5 we read of Hannah, “The LORD had closed her womb.” The same is written of other matriarchs in Israel’s history. In the lineage of Jesus, we find infertility in Sarai and Rebekah. God resolved these situations by personal intervention. Likewise, God demonstrated His absolute authority over conception and delivery in the New Testament with the conception of John the Baptist to Elizabeth who was “barren” and “advanced in years.”

A Christian patient writes, “I believe God provides humanity with the knowledge to develop fertility treatments so that He might bless infertile couples with children. But I’ve learned that conception, pregnancy, birth, life, and death belong solely to God and can be controlled by us only to the extent He allows.”

Whatever happens to us both in body construction and in circumstances, we know that nothing surprises God. The psalmist wrote, “For you formed my inward parts, you weaved me in my mother’s womb … My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them” (Ps. 139:13–16, authors’ paraphrase).

We simply must conclude from the biblical account that God has control over everything, including fertility. We’ve seen that God is all-powerful and that He sometimes causes and often allows infertility. Some conclude, then, that He must be unloving, and ask, “How could a loving God allow this to happen?”

Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that God cares for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, yet people are “more valuable than they.” God not only knows our needs, thoughts, and desires, He cares about them. In fact He tells us He has withheld nothing in demonstrating His love, going so far as to sacrifice His own Son for us.

Father William Wolkovich, a priest who works with grieving, young couples, stresses the distinction between asserting that their circumstances “make no sense” and admitting or accepting that they are “unable to make sense of it.” He illustrates this distinction using

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