Can you imagine waiting 25 years to become a mom?
There was a couple in the Bible that waited a very long time to see a promise fulfilled – to become mom and dad. This story is powerful and has points of encouragement whether you are reading from the viewpoint of a mom or a woman desiring to be.
The Couple
Abraham and Sarah were told by God that they would not only have a child but also that they would have so many descendants that they would be “beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore” (Genesis 22:17). What a promise!
25 long years later, their child Isaac was born. Most people when they read this story emphasize the fact that when Sarah became a mom she was 90 years old and Abraham 100 when they had Isaac. That alone was a miracle but think of what 25 years could have looked like. How they waited and waited, knowing because of previously following God and seeing him work that his promise would be fulfilled, despite how crazy it must have sounded at times.
25 years is a long time.
When you first read their story you can’t help but wonder why God didn’t tell Abraham and Sarah closer to when the promise would be fulfilled. Why make them wait and wonder? If you read their story (Genesis 17) you see that this couple already took big steps of faith to follow what God told them to do.
Perhaps God was trying to do something in them to mature them further by building their faith in him while also showing his miraculous ways? This couple had seen God work, they had seen hard times, and they had faith the Bible says as Abraham “looked forward.”
Is there something you are waiting on today and you feel like you have been asked to wait a very long time? Perhaps you are waiting desperately to become a mom for the first or even second time. I can completely relate. Maybe today you find yourself waiting on the results of a test for a job or a diagnosis. Or you are wondering if you have been forgotten while the rest of the world has moved on with life. God has not forgotten you. You matter deeply to him.
May you be encouraged by this story. There is a God at work who loves you very much. He sees your desires, your pain, and your past. He has a plan for you and He is not absent. He is the same God now as he was for Sarah and Abraham.
Republished April 2024
