HOPE Infertility Support Group: Vision, Scripture, and Prayer
Just a reminder about this week’s HOPE Infertility Support Group at Lakewood Church! I can’t believe it’s already May!
Lakewood Church
Thursday, May 2, 2013
3700 Southwest Frwy., Houston, Texas
7:00 p.m., Rm. 4025, 4th Floor
[email protected]
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Hi everyone. It’s Hannah here today sharing a word of encouragement with you. Every month I attend the HOPE Infertility Support meeting at Lakewood Church and I follow up with a short synopsis of what was missed at each meeting. Rather than simply take the meeting’s “minutes” (flashback to my student council days), my goal is to let everyone know what we talked about but to do it in an encouraging, devotional-type manner. I want to share my writing with you in hopes that it might encourage someone out there and to maybe encourage someone who might be interested in attending – to come.
Before our meeting began in this month of April, five of the HOPE volunteers gathered in the hallway to pray over each woman who would walk into our meeting. We entered the Throne Room, and petitioned God to heal the grief of every woman who would set foot into the HOPE support group. We wanted every woman who walked out of our meeting feel a fresh healing through Jesus. Our past two meetings, there has been a special anointing over the group – sweet Holy Spirit led meetings. And through the grief we see hope start to rise in the women attending. There are great things in store for HOPE and great things in store for the women who come, holding onto their precious promise of motherhood.
Our fearless HOPE leader, Lesli, has just released her new book, Dancing Upon Barren Land – Prayer, Scripture Reflections, and Hope for Infertility, and each month we have been diving into each chapter of her book.
In chapter 2 Lesli tells us, “The key to surrender is not giving up on life or the desire to become a parent but instead giving up anguish to the one who is able, Jesus Christ.” She immediately addressed the need for salvation through Jesus. She did this within the first fifteen pages of her book. Not the last sentence of the book. Girlfriend tackles it at the beginning! She recognized the need for the sweet, savory dessert before we ever touch the meat of the main course. Because when all is said and done, we need to point to Jesus as the lover of our soul, the mender of our hearts, and allow him to be the Savior we run to when we are drudging through the battle of life. So after giving her beautiful testimony of how she came to know Christ, Lesli invited the room to do the same.
Recognizing that we should point to Jesus as our hope through infertility, we also focused on the “Prayer and Scripture Reflections” section of the book. To give you an idea, She alphabetically lists the different situations and emotions we go through during the infertility journey and for each topic, she writes a prayer prompt for us to pray over these situations and gives us what God speaks over the situation in His Word. The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit. As a matter of fact, 2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us that the tools that God has given us through His Word have the ability to demolish strongholds. The different emotions we face through infertility that Lesli has written prayers and scriptures for in her book – anger, anxiousness, broken hearts, disappointments, fear, grief, and shame, to name a few – these aspects of infertility are strongholds. Through prayer and scripture reflections we are able to combat these negative emotions.
There is nothing more powerful than the Word of God and speaking it over our lives. Praying God’s word is a catalyst for God to move on our behalf. This is why it’s so important to cast and write down the vision for our lives and for our families. Habakuk 2:2-3 encourages us to be visionaries for our future:
“Write my answer plainly on tablets,
so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.
This vision is for a future time.
It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently,
for it will surely take place.
It will not be delayed.”
We write down these promises and visions so we can get a clear, tangible picture of the promises God has given us and then use His Word to remind him of those promises. Jeremiah 1:12 says “I am ready to perform my word” which means God is ready and willing when we activate God’s Word by praying it, believing it, and speaking it forth.
Mediate on the word because when we meditate our head knowledge becomes heart knowledge and burrows deep down into our spirit. Using the Word of God as the Sword of the Spirit, will ultimately grow our faith and hope in Jesus as we wait for the desires of our heart.
So formulate a vision for your life and write it down! Use the prayers and scriptures that Lesli has prompted in her book to fight down all of the negative emotions. And dive into God’s word, study, and research to corroborate your promises with what he has given you in his word. It won’t return void; Isaiah 55:11 says so…
It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it.