She Said Yes

How do I begin a blog post with a story that is worthy of a megaphone heard world-wide?  I’d like to stand on the hilltops dancing praises to Jesus and declaring His great worth before all the nations rather than writing a measly post.  However small it may seem, my prayer is that this story will reach many for His great fame.

********************

Let me tell you about my friend.

Her story is one that I cannot tell without weeping because her heart is one of the most precious to me. She is full of beauty and life in Jesus.

Marriage marks a new season of life that is both unknown and full of anticipation.  Hers didn’t begin with the happily ever after we all expect to greet us the day after our wedding. Sara’s journey has been marked with sorrow and suffering. There have been set-backs and disappointments at many turns in the road for her.  Yet along the way, the Lover of her soul –her Bridegroom–met her.  He invited her to go with Him into places that He has known well.  He invited her into His suffering.

And she said yes.

********************

After getting married, I think the one dream of a woman’s heart is to bear children.  It’s a God-given desire that doesn’t usually need to be cultivated. It’s just there waiting to be fulfilled.  When it doesn’t happen, it’s devastating.  The grief experienced is hard to put into words. “Depths of despair” would be a good start.  There are no truer words than those penned by Solomon, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12).

I had my own short-lived time of walking in this sort of grief before the Lord fulfilled my desires to bear children.  To say it was hard is an understatement. I walked it for 13 months.  Month after month, year after year, she has walked this road.

For nearly 12 years of marriage, Sara has walked the lonely road of barrenness.  She has adopted four of the most beautiful African children and has mothered them in a way that has convicted, encouraged, and called me higher as a mom.  But just as Proverbs says, the barren womb is never satisfied.

She has never ceased to ask Her Father for a child from her womb.

I’ve had the privilege of walking with her in some of the most painful waves of grief.  It’s heart-breaking, and I have wept tears for this friend.  I have begged the Lord not to allow me another child of the womb until He gave her one of her own.  And yet with each wave that came, my resolve to contend for new life inside of her only grew.  I think I’ve begun to learn some of what intercession looks like over these past three years.

I’ve only seen the last three years of the other-than beauty that has been emerging in her heart.  Yet, I think I’ve seen it bloom.  And it has taken my breath away.

I have beheld the beauty of the Lord in and through this friend in her suffering.  She has taught me what it looks like to gaze on this Man and give Him all that He deserves in the midst of her suffering. My world was turned upside down, and she is the one whom He sent to show me how to walk in hope while she suffered.

My life has been transformed by Jesus in large part through the life of this woman.  I wonder how many other hearts the Lord has awakened to behold Him in all His beauty and worth through her.   All because she kept saying yes.

************

It was my birthday, and the getaway we’d planned turned out to be a little disappointing. When we arrived home, two letters awaited me in the mailbox.  I tore them both open scanning the contents for the news I was expecting.

“I’m pregnant.”

“I knew it!”  I burst out of our bedroom and declared to my husband.  I was shaking.  I’d been praying for an open womb ever since I first met her, and He had done it.

My whole body was shaking, and I was crying, and I couldn’t dial her number fast enough.  I reached her voice mail and choked out a message, willing for her to pick up the phone.  I told her that I’d known for the past few months that it was coming soon. And that past week I knew it was coming very soon.

Friends, I want to shout it out to all the peoples of the earth: Jesus is Lord of all!  (I’ve been waiting for two months to shout it out!)

Sara Hagerty, your humility before the Lord has won you a place of honor before Him.  I know that you’ll be the first to cast your crown before His feet when you see Him.  Until that day comes, may your life and story be one that draws many to His throne so that myriads of crowns may be cast before Him.

“Is anything too hard for the Lord?”**

Read Sara’s own telling of her story here.  Make sure you have a *box* of tissues!

*Hinds Feet on High Places is my favorite allegory of our journey with the Lord.

**Genesis 18:14

This post is part of I Am a Storyteller.