Waiting in the Womb: How God Births Miracles from the Barren

In Genesis we are introduced to Sarah, who becomes the mother of all Israel. With her begins God’s promise that someday Abraham’s descendants will outnumber the stars in the sky. God’s promise to Abraham can’t work without a womb. And the woman whose womb He has been chosen is barren.

Sarah is beyond middle age when the promise is first spoken, and twenty-five years later when the promise finally comes to fruition, she’s an old woman married to a man a century old. Fertility would have been a four-letter word to Sarah. A baby was both her dream and her devastation. Her body was her hope and her betrayer.

I’m part of a fertility group on Facebook linked to a product I purchased to help me understand my body, and yes, to help me get pregnant. I’m not getting any younger, friends, and while God has been trying to heal me of my obsession with age and seek peace in His promises instead of my own obsessive nature, I’m slow to be changed. Stubborn, you might say. But I’m realizing I’m not the only one. In this group of women struggling to become pregnant, I see daily heartache that is all encompassing. Conception is the obsession, the journey, the goal, the beginning and the end.

I can’t read these women’s posts without thinking of Sarah. What would she have done if she lived now? I assume she’d be on every infertility Facebook group, she’d read books on taking her fertility into her own hands, she’d have fancy digital ovulation kits and early result pregnant tests (6 days sooner!). She’d be wearing out Abraham with timed marital fellowship. Month after month. Until the periods go away. And she knows it was over. And she mourns what she’s always wanted and would never have. And only at that point will God bring forth the fruit of His promise.

There’s another Infertile Myrtle in the Bible who isn’t as well known as Sarah, and in these days of waiting and encouraging other women who are also waiting, it’s her story I cling most to. And it’s her story I want to share with you.

So much of the story of Jesus is focused around Mary, this virgin who conceived when the Holy Spirit came upon her. We cling to this notion of God burgeoning within the womb of a young girl. It’s beautiful and magical and the foundation of the Christmas story. But before Jesus came into the world screaming and red-faced as his cheeks hit Israel’s night air, another baby was born. A baby whose purpose was to pave the way for Jesus. A baby so filled with the Holy Spirit he was wise even within the womb.

I believe Jesus birthed from a virgin was the second miracle. Elizabeth and her baby were the first. Here’s why.

Elizabeth, the wife of Zachariah, was well beyond child birthing years – like Sarah. The Bible says both the husband and wife were very old, and she was not able to conceive. Considering childbearing was a woman’s primary role for thousands of years, we can imagine the grief Elizabeth carried with her daily. I picture shoulders slouching into drooping breasts. I see a face filled with wrinkles telling of her days in the summer heat. I imagine her knees constantly sore, maybe dried and bruised from the hours spent praying to God for a baby to love. I imagine, like us sometimes, she wanted to be content solely in her relationship with God, but still she struggled with disappointment and sadness that pierced deep. Like Sarah she mourned the monthly reminder of her barren body, and at some point she likely realized her hope had dried up along with her cycle.

One day Elizabeth’s husband Zachariah came home from the temple and in a crazy mix of confusion and excitement, he pantomimed to his wife that an angel had visited him, told him his wife would bear him a son, and that they needed to name the child John. Imagine the flailing arms and tanned face as he tried to explain this. He couldn’t speak because the angel, Gabriel, had taken away his voice. Because Zachariah had doubted the angel’s words – you know, because his wife was around sixty – he was silenced as punishment for his doubt.

Think of the most absurd thing your husband could say to you when he comes home work. No matter what it is, it couldn’t possibly feel more insane than “an angel visited me at work and told me you’re going to have a baby. Yeah, I know you’re old and you don’t even bleed anymore, but you’re going to have a baby. Oh! And we have to name him John.”

David writes in Psalm 139 that he was made in the secret place. That secret place is in us women. We think we own the womb. But we don’t. This is not a political statement. It’s a spiritual one. Our womb is God’s secret place where He creates His masterpieces through us. Elizabeth didn’t own her womb anymore than Mary did. Anymore than Sarah did. Anymore than we do. Our pregnancies are plans coming to fruition just as the emptiness in our womb is the waiting for timing that is beyond our comprehension.

Our waiting – for a baby, a miracle, a healing, a promise – is the place where we are perfected with God’s desire. Our waiting is our preparation. In Ephesians 2:10 the Apostle Paul says we’re created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. We are created both in the womb and in the waiting. For a purpose God has already commissioned.

We can imagine Elizabeth was terrified at the idea of having a child when her knees ached and her hair had grayed. But she was obedient, as was her husband.

And God’s timing was perfect. Elizabeth gave birth to her baby, John the Baptist, three months after the angel Gabriel visited Mary.

If Elizabeth were the same age as Mary (or younger) there wouldn’t have been a miracle. If she hadn’t waited for as long as she had, she wouldn’t have been prepared to guide a young, naive pregnant teenager through an immaculate pregnancy with a divine purpose. She wouldn’t have been wise enough to raise a boy filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit. Imagine, also, what wisdom she was able to share with a doubting Joseph, a young man whose wife was visited by an angel and promised a baby from God. They could swap stories of crazy spouses and all the nutty things God will do to test our faith. And then they could stand in awe as God’s plans surpassed even their wildest dreams. Elizabeth’s value was in her maturity – and so was her miracle.

If John hadn’t come first, who would have dipped a young Jesus into the Jordan river? Who would have had crowds of people following him so that he might tell them of the Messiah? Who would have witnessed a dove come down from the sky and the voice of God proclaiming his great joy in His son Jesus?

John, the miracle baby born to an old barren mother, was the one who launched our savior into his ministry. Immediately after Jesus’s baptism, before he was able to go out for brunch and open his new devotional, the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After his return from the wilderness, after those 40 days and 40 nights of fasting, after being tested and toyed with by Satan, attended and protected by angels, he began to preach and perform his miracles. John who walked the path first. Because he was called to do so. Before he was born. Before he was even conceived.

John’s calling was the fruit of his mother’s, long-barren womb, her waiting and God’s impeccable timing.

You’ve been waiting for something. I don’t know what it is, but God does. Don’t allow yourself to be silenced, like Zachariah, in the doubting. Press into the emptiness inside you and give it to God. He births miracles from the barren. He will do it for you. When the timing for His masterpiece (you) is right.

Do you sometimes wonder where God is in your crazy? Do you feel like your faith doesn’t even make your To Do list?

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