Sarah's Daughters: Fertility and Fruitfulness from a Biblical Perspective

By Tresmaine R. Grimes, PhD

This book provides encouragement to Christians who are dealing with infertility. Using scriptures, the author explores the fertility journey of several Biblical characters who struggled to conceive, as well as the fruitful lives of several women of the Bible who were not mothers. The book ends with some practical steps to achieving spiritual fruitfulness and living a life that is pleasing to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483509716

Book preview

Copyright Page

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright @ 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright @1973, 1978, 1984. International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 9781483509716

Acknowledgements

Writing this book has been a labor of love. As with any labor and birthing, one person has to push to bring the end result into being, but there are many who serve as midwives along the way. I take this opportunity to thank each person who has helped me push this book out into the world for the second time.

I thank God first for all things. Without Him, nothing is possible and with Him, all things are. It is God who gave this book life. Without His inspiration there would have been no words to write and no ideas to germinate. Thank you, God, for the vision and the challenge. I thank my husband, Clarence, for his insistence that I put my words on paper, and his constant support throughout every journey of our married lives. I thank my children for the many lessons they have taught me about life and love. I thank my mother for her strength and tenacious belief that I am special and valuable in God’s eyes. And of course, I thank the spiritual brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters who have encouraged me over the years.

There are many who have transformed this book since I published the original version back in 2003. I would like to thank Gina Wade for typing and revising this manuscript on more than one occasion. I thank Crystal Emery and her assistant, Rev. W. Tay Moss, for their work on this project. Crystal, you were the one who brought Sarah’s Daughters to another level, and I thank you with all my heart. The Bible says, Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22; NIV). You know exactly what that means for Sarah’s Daughters. Your insistence that there was more in me for this book made me expand my thinking and served as the impetus for extensive revisions of the original manuscript. Tay, thank you for using your gifts to make needed corrections to the manuscript and put Crystal’s ideas on paper. Elsa Peterson, thank you for editing a version of this manuscript and for adding your words to the Resources pages. You will never know how much I appreciate all that you have done for me. Keith Carroll, I sent you a final manuscript thinking that my work was done. However, you challenged me to revise this manuscript again! You gave me the opportunity to hear God’s voice concerning fruitfulness. The final revisions of the text would not have been possible without you. Thank you for your wisdom and inspiration at the end of this project. Tusheena Lindsey, thank you for inspiring, encouraging, and pushing me to the finish line.

Most of all, thank you, reader, for giving me an audience for the words in my heart. May God richly bless you as you leaf through the pages of this book, and may your life produce fruit that will remain.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Introduction

I originally wrote this book for Christian women who were struggling with infertility. However, you will find that this latest version of the book spends a good deal of time discussing fruitfulness too. When I went through the experience of being a Christian woman trying to conceive in the 1980’s, very few ministers were discussing this subject. Those who did typically blamed the woman, saying that we must have bitterness in our hearts that was preventing us from being able to conceive. Using David’s wife Michal as an example, most preachers told us that if we would worship, pray, confess, and trust God more, He would certainly hear and answer our prayers. Some women, including many I prayed for, did indeed give birth to children of their own. I celebrated with them, and expected God to one day do the same for me. He didn’t. I thought perhaps that was my fault, and that sentiment was often encouraged by church people, including those in ministry. Those of us who didn’t give birth were often made to feel that this was the result of some hidden spiritual defect or because our prayers were less fervent and powerful than those of women who succeeded in having at least one child.

As an avid reader, I turned to the local bookstore to find books by other Christian women who had been through the experience of infertility. Sadly, there was nothing there that spoke to me or could comfort me in my disappointment. By the time I wrote the first version of this book in 2003, there was much more material in the bookstore, but very little of it was directed toward Christian women. My goal was to write a book that would encourage and comfort my sisters in Christ who were struggling to conceive as I had years before.

To be honest, the Church as a whole does not discuss infertility openly. Most congregations have at least one family that has been touched by infertility, yet there are few who teach about the subject to God’s people. Many church communities seem to view infertility as something secretive or irrelevant. Since most couples conceive quite easily (often too easily!), they are sometimes unaware of the tremendous pain couples feel as they try time and time again to have children. Of course, there are men and women in our churches who will pray with infertile couples and encourage them to hold on to hope. They are blessings and we thank God for them. However, many times, church people can say or do things that serve to increase the isolation, pain, and shame couples feel about infertility. They do not intentionally isolate them when they sit and discuss their children, but if you do not have children, you may feel out of place with nothing to say. Those church-folk who say that our adopted children are not really ours, or who question adoptive parents’ knowledge and judgment concerning the development of their children, inflict tremendous emotional pain and can potentially damage the parent-child relationship. Adoption horror stories on the news showing children being ripped away from their adoptive parents and returned to their biological parents have discouraged some couples from considering adoption as a viable option for having children. Others fear adoption because the genetics of the child’s birth family are often unknown; they wonder what personality traits or psychological disorders might be hidden in the DNA of that adorable little baby. And those who are unable to have children because of damaged reproductive organs due to poor choices made during youth can feel tremendous shame and guilt for decades.

For each of my sisters and brothers who are struggling with infertility, I hope that you will find comfort as you read this book. The first section of the book focuses on this problem of infertility and provides some action steps for those who are dealing with this struggle. I have added more information for men, since men struggle with infertility too. Whether you are a man or a woman, dealing with infertility or emotionally tied to someone who is, it is important to know that you are not going through this experience alone. The Word of God speaks to us all.

The second part of this book focuses on becoming a fruitful person. This reflects my own change of focus in the years since writing the first edition of Sarah’s Daughters. Since that time (over five years at the time of this writing) God has done much to help me, to change me, to heal me. My focus has changed from never giving birth to tremendous gratitude for the way God has used my life to bless the lives of other people, especially my spiritual children. The blessing of fruitfulness is that it can be achieved, with or without being a parent.

I pray that as you read this book, you will seek God to discover His plan and His will for your life. It is, after all, the most important thing we can ever accomplish. Finally, I pray that when you finish reading this book you know without a doubt that God loves you with an everlasting love, and that you are able to face your future without fear.

Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. I Peter 3:6, KJV.

Fruit of the Body

Chapter One ∼ I am one of Sarah’s Daughters

And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32, KJV.

In 1986, after less than two years of marriage, I learned that my fallopian tubes were blocked. The fallopian tubes are essential to the reproduction process because they provide the conduit that connects ova and sperm. Conception takes place here, in the fallopian tubes, and then the fertilized egg travels into the uterus. Since my fallopian tubes were blocked, this essential connection between egg and sperm could not take place. In 1986, most of the assisted reproductive technology we now take for granted was either unknown or just in its experimental stage. The physician who gave me this diagnosis was a young woman herself, and was not very hopeful about my case. She finished her post-diagnostic speech by reminding me that I could always adopt a child. I thanked her for her assistance and maintained my composure while I was leaving her office, but after I made it to the payphones in the reception area I fell apart. I sat in the phone booth and I cried very quietly so that no one would hear me. I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach and left me to die. I felt like a failure, felt like I had failed my family, failed myself, but most of all, my husband. He was normal. I was the one with the problem. After I sat there for a few moments, I gathered enough courage to call my husband and let him know the results of the testing. As always, he sounded unmoved and positive about the whole situation. It’s okay, he said. We’ll talk about it when you get home and we’ll figure out what we should do. He told me to stop crying so that I could drive myself home. I felt much calmer after I heard his reaction to the news, but I still cried all the way home. When I got home, he was still at work so I had the house to myself. I threw down my bags, curled up in the fetal position on the floor, and sobbed uncontrollably. Every part of my body, mind, and spirit was consumed with a form of agony that I could not describe even if I tried. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. It hurt to feel.

It was there, while I was on the floor crying in my own private hell, that I began my life as an infertile woman. Earlier that day, before the appointment with my physician, I was a married woman. Following the appointment, even though no one knew my secret, I was an infertile woman. Someone to be pitied and prayed for. I was someone who could not perform the simple task of conceiving her husband’s child. Right there crying on that floor I began a process of self-blame that lasted for many years. I believed it was my fault that I was infertile. I just knew that I was paying for all of the sins of my youth. I did not accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior until I was about twenty-one years old, so I had lived a less-than-perfect life before I came to the Lord. I began to think about all of