Carolyn McCulley has recently written a couple of posts (here and here) about praying for a husband and living with the desire for marriage when it's not necessarily being fulfilled immediately. While the posts don't apply to my specific situation right now, I found her insights about waiting on God to provide something you strongly desire extremely helpful for myself in this season of infertility. Waiting is waiting. The specifics are different, but often the helplessness of the waiting is the same regardless of the thing we are waiting for. Granted, the levels of pain and emotion are different with the varying degrees of waiting, but the temptation to sin and the tendency towards despair are present for nearly everyone who is waiting on God to give them what they desperately desire. Wherever you are in the "waiting" journey of life, consider these questions she asks and ask God to apply them to your heart today. Her questions are geared towards women waiting on marriage, but as I read them I inserted my own situation of waiting on God to open my womb. I pray they help you like they helped me.
- You find it hard to pray because you think God doesn't want to bless you.
- You aren't thankful for all the other answered prayers and blessings in your life.
- You withdraw from others who are getting married or in relationships. (I do understand how hard it can be when someone else enters a relationship, especially with a man you are interested in. Being knocked off-balance by disappointment is common and it takes time to grieve lost hopes. But it should be temporary. If it becomes a permanent way of relating to others, then you've entered the place of bitterness and idolatry.)
- You go to church more aware of the human relationships around you (ones you envy, ones you want) than your relationship with God.
- You think you have no purpose in the Kingdom because you are single, so therefore you don't serve others in the church or outside of it. You've begun to believe the Enemy's lie that nothing good can come out of this season of your life.
- Any discussion of marriage or singleness is a sore spot for you, one that keeps bringing you back to the idea that God is withholding something good from you.