Daniel's Deliverance and Stephen's Stoning - The Prosperity Gospel in Africa and God's Sovereignty in Suffering

We all like to hear stories with 'happy' endings.

When sin came into the world, it destroyed the happy ending.  On an earth level there is no happy ending anymore.

Yet we still desire it.  We know that the damage sin causes isn't 'right' or 'good'.  We long for something more.....and we give eternal praise to our loving Creator who made a way for a 'happy ending' to be returned.  But its not the happy ending of an 'earthly' definition and level - its one far greater and one that enables us to get through the story until then.  

One day there will be a 'happy ending' to surpass all happy endings when our sorrows and suffering will be replaced by joy and peace in the presence of our Saviour in the house of our Father.

But until then, happy endings on an earthly scale are not promised to us.  This earth is under the curse of the fall.  Our world is not perfect.

Unfortunately many churches like to promote the idea that if you come to Christ, everything will go well from then on - no sickness, disability, suffering, poverty etc etc.  Across Africa the Prosperity Gospel has promoted the idea that Christians get immunity not only from eternal suffering, but from present suffering.

But even if we are not part of a Prosperity Gospel context, it is easy to still focus on God's power as being primarily related to our physical life and positive outcomes on this earth.  We 'rejoice' when a disabled child 'beats the odds' and God intervenes in such a way that all the doctor's predictions of disaster don't come to pass. - a Daniel-type Deliverance.  We rejoice when a person gets the news that their cancer is in remission. We rejoice when a long awaited baby is born.  And there is nothing wrong with rejoicing in these circumstances - there would be something wrong if we didn't.

But we have to also be careful that we don't give the impression that God is good and God is answering prayer more when we get 'Daniel Deliverances' than when we see Stephen Stonings.  

We must not simply equate God with the circumstances we see.  

God can use circumstances we see to show His goodness, but God's goodness is far greater than the circumstances we see.  

As human beings living in the circumstances, this is very hard for us to take in at times.  

Circumstances can seem overwhelming.  

But if we focus on what we determine in our wisdom is a 'good' outcome, we run the danger of not doing 'good' to those God wants His 'goodness' to be shared with.  We can overlook those who are discouraged and suffering who need to be reminded and encouraged with the goodness of God's eternal loving purposes even though they are not seeing any 'Daniel Deliverances' in their life.

A few years back a 'Daniel Deliverance' situation occurred in the church we attended - a baby was born and the birth was a 'mess' to say the least.  It would be a miracle if the baby survived but the prognosis wasn't good.  He lived.  Not only did he live but apart from needing spectacles early on, there is hardly anything to suggest he had such a traumatic start to life.  Everyone rejoiced. His mum wrote a book sharing how good God was as He answered their prayers.

Yes God did deliver Daniel from the mouths of lions, but then Scripture also records Stephen's stoning. There was no deliverance.  He died from those stones.  God didn't divert them or paralyse the hands that tried to throw them or enable Stephen's body to remain undamaged by them.

I have just read a blog about another Mum who's son was also born with a bad prognosis.  She prayed and believed God could heal and enable her son to 'beat the odds'.  But years later he still hasn't beaten any odds.  We have dear friends who had two sons and both developed a genetic degenerative condition and died before they reached 25 - they didn't 'beat the odds'.  Another friend has a son with cerebral palsy and is still changing his nappies/diapers in his 20s - he hasn't 'beaten the odds'.

As I write this blog from my horizontal position while others enjoy the freedom of walking around at the shops or taking a walk through the bush, I am reminded that God was no less God at Stephen's stoning than He was at Daniel's Deliverance.  He was still working His purposes.

As my doctor starts asking me questions about menopause and has never had the need to ask me questions yet about how a pregnancy is progressing, I am reminded that God is still God whatever His purposes are.  Circumstances might not be my choosing but God isn't limited by what humans determine are good 'outcomes'.

Instead, God is working for His great eternal outcomes.  

He is working for the healing of souls from sin, not just the healing of bodies from disease and disability.  

He knows that a soul that trusts Christ in this life is saved from sin and thus automatically rescued from physical suffering in eternity.  But a body that is rescued from physical suffering in this life is not automatically saved from sin and death eternally. He doesn't enjoy seeing His creation suffer, and Jesus spent much of His earthly years healing people's bodies, but God has a higher priority than the temporal.

We need to be very careful when we rejoice with those who thank God for relief from physical suffering, that we explain the 'full story' in the process of preaching and discipleship .  

We need to make sure we focus on more than the 'physical' needs of people in our praise and in our prayer.

Some of you are probably familiar with the movie 'Facing the Giants'  - its a great movie in many ways, but while I rejoice for the many women who praise the Lord for answered prayer for a child, I feel for the many women who, like myself,  know that the gift of a child is not simply a result of our 'prayer', because they have prayed many prayers and still there is no child. 

Prayer is dependancy on God no matter what the outcomes, not manipulation of God to achieve our outcomes.  

So many around us here in Africa are yet to understand that.  

Prayer is not a ritual with magic powers.  Prayer is resting in the sovereignty of His Majesty the King of Kings.

In prayer and praise let's be sure to rejoice in God's purposes even when circumstances 'go wrong'.

Let's teach people in word and example to pray, trust, rejoice and rest in God's sovereignty no matter what the circumstances.

Both Daniel and Stephen entrusted themselves in prayer to their Creator for His purposes.  Their earthly circumstance 'outcomes' people saw, were different at the time.  But their eternal outcomes were the same.....they both died physically (Daniel still died at a later date) and they both live eternally.....and I look forward to meeting both of them in the resurrection!

And as a PS...we might think a Stoning is not deliverance, or a child that 'doesn't beat the odds' isn't deliverance, or infertility is not deliverance, but ultimately as Christians we are part of the greatest deliverance of history - Christ died for us.  

He brought eternal deliverance!  And the ability this gives us to rejoice in Christ's work and the Father's purposes no matter what the circumstances, is a greater deliverance. 

We are delivered from being defined and directed by our circumstances.  

We are part of a greater story than just what we see during our small window of time on this earth.

As the Mum in the blog mentioned above, said " Deliverance hasn't come from our circumstances.  But God doesn't need Calvin [her son's name] to beat the odds in order to prove his goodness, faithfulness, power and salvation. Our weakness is precisely what he is using to show his power and presence."

The "Mary" Honour Blessing that Prosperity Churches Don’t Want

Christmas has just passed and many of us will have heard the Christmas story read in our churches from chapter 1 of Luke or Matthew

In these passages we read about how the Angel Gabriel brought news of pregnancy both to Elizabeth and her young cousin Mary. Both refer to the messages as evidence of God showing them His favour. 

Two Women, Two Miracles

The news to Elizabeth brought a removal of her shame: 

Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people

Some translations use the word 'disgrace' instead of 'reproach', but both mean shame.  The New Living Translation, instead of saying 'among people' gives cultural meaning to the words by saying 'disgrace of having no children'.  In other words the blessing was that God removed her cultural and earthly shame of infertility.

The news to Mary, however, which was almost identical in that it was an announcement that she was to have a baby, had a different immediate earthly outcome.  Both babies were unexpected miracles that seemed to be outside the realms of possibility (Elizabeth being humanly too old to conceive and Mary not having 'known' a man in a sexual way), and Mary's miracle is also described by the Angel as evidence of God's favour in Luke 1:28,30:

And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!"

And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

 But the news to Mary didn't remove any public shame.  Instead it brought shame for Mary and for Joseph.  

Joseph, when he found out the news, wanted to divorce Mary quietly and 'privately' so as to avoid public shame and disgrace.  However, with God's intervention through the angel's visit to Joseph in a dream, he didn't divorce her. Instead he and Mary had to live with the rumours, stories and shame that went with a baby being concieved by Mary while they were still in the betrothal period.

So we have two women, two stories of good news of a baby, and two stories of favour from God, but one brought relief from earthly shame and one was the very means of bringing earthly shame.

Earthly Shame in Eternal Honour

This raises a significant issue that Prosperity churches, here in Africa especially, don't talk about.  

It's the issue that honour from God may equal shame on earth.

It's an issue I've spoken about before on this blog and an issue that needs to be re-calibrated for many Africans.

Culturally for Africans, earthly shame is the only shame to factor into life.  When a person becomes a Christian, they think that the type of honour God gives, is honour according to how they understand honour.  And so if Scripture says believers 'will not be put to shame' (eg Romans 9:33), it is understood Christians will never experience shame on earth if they are truly living in God's favour, blessing and honour.  It is believed that blessing from God always equals earthly shame removed.

But here, in Scripture, are two women, who God tells us in His word, were godly, blessed and favoured, but the outcome for one of them was only earthly shame compounded and heaped on.

Yet, did Mary seek God to remove her shame and seek a prophet for deliverance from such a curse, deciding it could not be of God because it brought shame to her and her husband? No. 

Mary recognised that God's honour can result in earthly shame, but God's honour always, always is supreme over any earthly shame.  

As we look at her praise song, often called the 'magnificat' (in Luke 1:46-55), she knew that God looks on the humble, and exalts the humble.  He feeds the poor and hungry and sends the rich away empty. God humbles the proud and brings them down.  God's accounting system of what is of high value honour status and what is of low value was the opposite of her culture's accounting system of honour and shame.

She knew that in God's system of things, honour and shame were not just about today and what people around might say today.  She didn't just live for today.  She was a woman who lived for God's eternal purposes.  She knew that a day would come when future generations would call her 'blessed' even if they didn't just now.  What God thought of her, and that God chose her, was of far, far greater value to her than what others around might say. 

In the events which spelt 'Earthly shame' for Mary, she described as her 'mighty' and 'holy' God doing 'great things' for her.

This is the message we have to preach, preach, preach, counsel, counsel, counsel, teach, teach, teach, live, live, live……especially here in Africa.  Because it is a message that is mis-understood - in endemic proportions!

Sadly its a message of truth that is not only opposite to cultural honour and shame values, but it is opposite to the teaching of a huge number of churches and TV preachers across this continent.

It's passages like the first chapter of Luke and Matthew that have to be looked at with non-Western eyes and seen for the rich truth they have to speak powerfully into honour/shame dominated hearts.

Be Willing for a "Mary" Plan 

Yes, we can be thankful when God's plan and favour include a removal of earthly shame, like for Elizabeth. 

But we need to help folk understand that instead of an 'Elizabeth plan', God might have a 'Mary plan'. ….a plan that from our temporary, 'now', earthly perspective looks shameful, but from an eternal, future and heavenly perspective is of great blessing. 

If God brought His greatest gift to the world through a 'Mary plan' of earthly shame (of which Jesus' conception was only the beginning of much earthly shame for him and his family), then why should we even begin to doubt that He can bring great blessing to us and the world through what seems to us as shameful means in the eyes of those around us?

Let us lift our eyes to heaven just as Mary did and praise and thank the Lord for whatever situations He chooses for us - whether honourable or shameful in the eyes of the culture around us - trusting that God sees more than we do, knows more than we do, has much bigger plans than we do and loves us more than we can imagine.  

The honour God wants us to enjoy is on a 'Mary' scale - He wants us to know the type of joy Mary had as she praised her Lord and Saviour for the great favour and honour He bestowed upon her even though it meant her life was about to be clouded in earthly shame.

Let's not choose joy and honour limited by worldly and cultural terms.  Let's choose joy and honour that supercedes earthly definitions!  Let's not just seek God for 'Elizabeth plans', but be eagerly willing and rejoice in 'Mary plans' too!

Sarah, honor and infertility

I have written on infertility before, since it is a topic very real in my own life. (see here and here for previous blogs)

But I have just read a blogpost on challies.com (the photo above is from that blogpost), about Sarah, Abraham's wife. The blogpost addresses the question of what must she have been thinking as she watched Abraham go off into the tent with her Egyptian slave, Hagar?

There are many great comments in the blog post and Challies is one of my favourite blogs to follow.  But from my personal experience and living and researching honour/shame contexts of Africa, I think the issue goes much deeper than he takes it.  By deeper I mean, the issue is more subtle.  

From a Western perspective, its so easy to be quick to judge and point out how 'off track' Sarah had got.  For sure she had wandered from her trust in God, but I doubt it was out of rebellion or gross disregard for God.  Especially if we are wanting to sincerely please God, Satan's temptations to sin are far more subtle.

Firstly I totally understand Sarah's personal desire to have a child.

But, from living in an African society where 'giving birth' has far greater significance than in our Western setting, I would not wish to be quick in my condemnation.  I wouldn't want to sit as a judge but rather learn from her as a fellow pilgrim who also faces temptations and a deceitful heart. Yes there is the reality of Sarah's idolatry - she had replaced God's word and wisdom with her own wish and wisdom.  We are all guilty of idolatry and again and again tempted to be idolators.  

What Sarah's story teaches me is that sin is subtle.  

But no matter how attractive sin is, no matter what it offers, no matter how logical it sounds, no matter how culturally acceptable it is, no matter how much pressure there is to conform, sin is still sin, and subtle or not it comes back to bite us. 

She also teaches me that 'helping God out' through human wisdom is a dangerous road to walk. It can be so very easy to leave the path of trusting God, to wander into relying on our own sense of 'participation' to solve our dilemmas or assist in our difficulties, especially when our culture may not see something as 'wrong'. 

She also teaches me that any good desire (such as to have children) that gets in the way of God's desire is idolatry.

She teaches me how 'easy' it is to rationalise sin or not 'see' sin for what it is.

She teaches me that a longing for significance or even a desire to help my husband gain honour must never usurp giving honour to God, God's way.

She may not have been consciously 'disobeying'.  She may not have awoken one morning and said, 'today, I've had enough of waiting for God, I don't trust Him anymore, I'm going to do this my way'.  

More likely she gradually began asking herself, 'Is there something I should do?  Maybe the way culture around me does it might be ok? Even though I want the baby to come from my body, maybe I should be willing to let go of that personal desire?  Maybe I should do something more to enable me to bring my husband an heir and the joy and honour of that heir?

Satan doesn't normally come with a big sign saying 'come this way, disobey God, and create a disaster', but rather he comes offering very plausible sounding arguments just like in the garden of Eden.  

Her story also teaches me that no matter how strong I am now and all my life in trusting God, it is never a guarantee of immunity from temptation at any point in my life.  Though maybe influential, my history doesn't automatically determine my present. Satan is the great deceiver, the father of lies and an angel of light.  

I get the impression that Sarah was busy 'doing what was right in [her] own eyes'.  It is more likely she rationalised sin rather than outright rebelled.  Both are wrong and equally shameful in God's eyes and dangerous to our walk with God, but both are not equally obvious.

Culture around Sarah in those days would have found it quite acceptable to have children by another woman so as to create an 'heir'. (see a previous blog about this practice right now in Africa even in the church)

Ancient near-east culture is very similar to the African culture all around me, where a woman has very little honour until she has given birth - until she is a mother. 

Challies' blog mentions that she already had honor and it may have been a certain kind of honor in some ways (she was at least married and they had some wealth), but where it mattered she didn't have it - she wasn't a mother. Culturally she was a failure as a wife and thus in a position of shame. (We must also remember that she and Abraham were called by God to leave their family and home place - a challenge in effect to leave all their earthly honour behind and live separated and as wandering outcasts in the eyes of those around them.) 

In honor/shame cultures the honor of becoming a mother and the honor for a man of having a son/heir is of paramount importance.  To have your line, your name, continue after you is vital. This would have been particularly significant in the light of Abraham having to leave his family 'name' to start again under no more re-assurance than God's promise that He would give him a new name and family.(Gen 12:1-3)  Sarah was a wife who not only was not a mother, but who was unable to give her husband an heir.  The fact that she got to the age she did without compromising was remarkable.  But we can't live on yesterday's faith.

And that is a challenge to me.  It is so easy to roll along in our Christian life in the 'power' of yesterday's walk with God - like a roller coaster only moving on the momentum from previous moments.

The challenge is big - to not fall back on human wisdom and reasoning, to not set standards of right and wrong by culturally acceptable ways, to not rationalise sin, to not seek mis-placed honour and to not grow impatient....to 'check in' with God on everything - to acknowledge Him (remember Him and seek His will and desires) in everything (Prov 3:5,6) and pray without ceasing! (1 Thess 5:17)

Sin is subtle and we must look more than superficially at our own situations, choices and thinking. We must not be impulsive but 'take every thought captive' unto obedience to Christ (2 Cor 10:5). We must not neglect exposing all our ideas to the light of God's word (Ps 119:105), we must not underestimate the deceitfulness of our own heart (Jer 17:9), we must not cease to keep our 'eyes fixed on Jesus' (Heb 12:2) depending on Christ alone as our only 'hope of glory' (Col 1:27).

For sure, Sarah teaches me that times of great faith don't exclude me from temptation (Jesus' temptations confirm that), nor does it vaccinate me against sin and failure and the deceitfulness of my own heart. (Sarah is listed in the Hebrews 11 (v11) 'great faith' chapter, and yet instigated one of the most major 'sins' of history - that has continued to the conflict between Jews and Muslims to this day). 

BUT She also teaches me through this passage though that repentance and renewed faith after failure is possible - following the Hagar/Ishmael fiasco we are told in v11 that she received power from God to conceive as she considered God faithful to His promise.

I will close by quoting the final paragraph from Challies blog post:

"Where is God asking you to simply wait and trust? Where have you lost faith, or where is your faith wavering? Where is God slow to fulfill his promises to you, slow to answer prayer, slow to grant you the gift of understanding? Look right there and you may see displaced and then misplaced faith. Look right there and you may see how you have begun to come up with your own devious plans, even plans that directly contradict the clear, revealed will of God. Look right there and you may just see an idol taking root. Look right there and plead with God to restore your faith in him and his promises."

Shame and Infertility

I have blogged about Infertility before, but the issue came up again in a discussion with someone today.

They told me of a Pastor who is in the process of divorcing his wife because she has not been able to bear them any children.

In a culture where there is inherent shame in being childless, there is the added belief in many churches that God will never allow a Christian to be barren.  This Pastor has obviously decided that the shame before the eyes of people around him in his culture and in his church is much greater and more important than any shame before God for choosing to divorce his wife for unbiblical reasons.  

(This reminds me of the story of Hannah in the Bible, who in her great distress and sadness, and shame in her society, went to the temple to implore the Lord to answer her prayer for a child.  And what happens....the priest who should have been the one to bring comfort and encouragement, piled on more shame by accusing her of being a drunk.)

The story really hit me.  I personally know how hard it is to be barren and not having the joy of having one's own children by birth (or even formal adoption).  My heart goes out to a woman who has to also endure the shame from her culture and her church, and now the complete rejection from her husband all because she has not been able to give birth to their child.....and to make matters worse - the very person who is supposed to be shepherding his home and his church flock and giving them the comfort and love of Christ, is the one handing out the greatest shame. Oh the pain that must be in that lady's heart.  May she know the comfort of God's loving arms and her honour in Christ despite the judgement of shame by those around her.

There is also a belief we have heard articulated here that God will honour His children and His name and thus would not allow His children to be shamed in the eyes of people looking on, thus He would never deny a woman being able to give birth to a child.  The problem is that a cultural understanding of what is 'honour' and what is 'shame' is superimposed onto those same terms in Scripture.  I had a significant conversation with a lady just recently on this topic.  She was making a decision to not return to her home country after leaving Botswana, based on the fact that she believed God would not want her to be in a situation that would be shameful in the eyes of her non-Christian relatives back home, since she was not returning home with great wealth and gifts. (we have come across this issue more than once). She believed that as a Christian not being able to fulfil cultural expectations, she would bring shame on God's name.  She thought it was a very good reasoning process based on out of context verses in Scripture that say "Anyone who believes in Him will never be put to shame"(Romans 10:11).  

Thankfully I had opportunity to explain that the shame that we are saved from is ultimate shame before God and others on judgement Day and for eternity, and that on this earth as Christians there are many times when we will be called to bear shame in the eyes of others for not fulfilling their expectations of us (personally or culturally).  There is a need to understand biblically what it means to honour God's name.  Firstly a person has to understand how God defines honouring His name.  Honouring God needs to be on the basis of obedience to His word not on the basis of how we feel we should 'culturally' protect His name.  We are not called to be God's protectors, but His humble obedient servants.  And once again we see a need to explain that how God wants to be honoured is not disconnected from his law.

It's people like that Pastor and his wife, and my friend, who we long to have an understanding of what it means to honoured in Christ and freed from the shaming of others.  We long for them to understand the truth of Scripture and experience the freedom and courage they can have in Christ.

A baby....nearly Part 3 - Higher Perspectives!

In fact, for me, the issue of our infertility is probably one of the hardest ongoing emotional issues of serving as missionaries overseas - ie its an area where I am challenged time and again to trust God.  This is because it has meant that the 'gap' of no kids in our home seems all the greater when we also have not had the privilege of being around any of our nieces or nephews as they have grown up either. And it means that as we move along in years, in years to come the family relationships that would have been the strongest, that of our own kids, won't be one that will be there for us.

This has been one of the greatest tests for me to again and again choose the God-focused priority of eternity over the man-focused temporal issues, and entrusting our needs to our Heavenly Father.  

It's again and again choosing to rest in the fact that God has called us to a task that in many ways could not have been done the way it has, if we had kids. 

It is again and again reminding myself of the fact that God chose to bring us together as husband and wife knowing what plans He had for us, knowing that some kids here in Botswana needed to have a mum and dad for a period in their lives, and knowing that He was able to give me the strength to entrust our future to Him. And in it He has given us some very rich and special joys (as well as some of the deepest struggles) of being 'parents'.  We often say we skipped the 'nappies' (diapers) and went straight to the teenage problems! - we landed well and truly in the deep end first!

And again and again in it all, thanking Him for taking our uniqueness as infertile, and for His unique purposes of giving us the privilege of spiritually parenting several dear souls here in Botswana who will join us one day at the Marriage supper of the Lamb.  Because above all, as much as we long for it to be our own flesh and blood who look up into our eyes and call us mum and dad, we even more desire that many here on the edge of the Kalahari Desert may come to the place of being able to look to their Creator and say "Abba Father"!

(In case you are wondering, our infertility is actually most probably a situation of two people with fertility issues being brought together.  My husband has a physical condition called Klinefelter Syndrome - a genetic condition that affects 1 in 500 males, causing him to be infertile, and I have had issues with very very low ovulation - so as hard as it is, (and it is still hard), we can see God's purposes in the way he allowed us to be formed in our mother's wombs so that instead of raising our own babies, He could call us to be busy being mum and dad to those who needed one, as well as enabling spiritual babies to be born and grow here in Africa)

......and the baby in the photo is our first African 'grand-child' when she was about 8 months old.

here is another blogpost I recommend in regard to infertility and loving those couples who are infertile, in a God glorifying way....

A baby....nearly! Part 2 - Cross cultural issues of Infertility

But what about for us in the additional context of a cross-cultural living situation?

God has blessed us with many young people here in Botswana who call us mum and dad....and now even one who calls me Granny as the next generation begins.  We sometimes get Mother's Day and Father's Day messages, and they look out for us to some degree now they are all grown up and 'on their own', but no, its not the same as having your own kids.  None of these kids are biologically ours or even by adoption.  

For us, even though we were very willing to adopt, circumstances have meant we are unable to do so, because we are not living in our home country, and we don't live in a country that is a signatory to the Hague Convention and its not so easy for a foreigner to adopt in our country of residence.   So essentially believing the Lord had called us here, meant being willing to sacrifice the possibility of being able to adopt children.

Culturally though there are also additional and different issues to consider with living in an entirely different part of the world. In the culture of the surrounding society, a female adult who hasn't borne a child is still viewed as a 'girl' as opposed to a woman and has little or no standing or respect in society.   In the city the issue is less noticed of course, but culturally the issue is still very much there.  In the church/Christian environment, many folks around would say that no children shows a lack of faith or a punishment from God and withholding of blessing for some sin you either did in the past or are doing now that you are trying to keep secret but God sees it.  We have even encountered situations where even in the church men or women will quietly 'offer' themselves for either partner in an infertile marriage to 'sleep' with so as to 'enable God' to give the infertile couple, a baby.  Many unbiblical ideas and practices abound. 

God has been very gracious to me, with being in the city as opposed to a village, where we are less 'watched' in some ways.  It is also quite normal here for kids to be looked after by a nanny or auntie and actually not be out with the parents all that often.  So if I am counselling someone in a Corporate office setting or meeting with a Corporate executive, or even chatting with someone in a shopping mall, they have no idea whether I have kids or not.  Those who know us well, know our situation and the reason that we don't have kids is because of infertility issues.....  

........God has also blessed us with close local friends who are willing to stand strong on the fact that childbearing is for within marriage only with the man you are married to, so I haven't really had pressure to just 'get a baby' any way possible.  Unfortunately around us there is much bearing of children not only out of wedlock, but even sometimes without being sure of who the father is.  For some it has become a higher priority to have a child, than to wait till marriage to have a child and often adults in the community and parents will encourage a girl to just 'bring a baby'.  

Having said that, though, when a child is born, the mother and child are not seen publicly for several months if traditional ways are followed.  So to some degree it isn't as obvious to the community around that I don't have children.  Expatriates, of which there are many here in the Capital city, also often send their children away to boarding school and so their kids aren't around.  So, many assumptions are made by the local folk as to why they don't see us with children and that reduces how many questions I have to answer, or how much lack of respect I might otherwise have had to deal with.

But does that eliminate completely the grief or heartache of not being able to have our own kids?  Definitely not. 

follow on in Part 3 where I share some of how God has helped me see 'higher' perspectives on my situation!

A baby...nearly! - Part 1

It's Mother's Day today.  It's always a day of mixed emotions for me.  I am not a mother in the normal sense of the term, and probably never will be, and yet in another sense I am.  What some might call 'spiritual mothering' is something God has granted me many times as I have had the privilege of either leading someone to Christ or God has brought them to me as young Christians, and then I have been able to help them grow in 'favour with God and Man'.

As we refer to our 'kids' and even our 'grand-daughter' in these blogs, they are not our own biological children.  However, they have been a very special blessing to us, especially our little 'grand-daughter'.  This is another way in which God has granted me the privilege of 'mothering'.

But last year,  we were asked by a Social worker if we would be willing to foster a 4 month old baby girl, with the real possibility of it resulting in something more permanent. There were many surrounding circumstances that caused our hearts to long to provide a happy Christian environment for this baby, not least the desire to hold a little one in our arms that we would possibly call our own.  However there were several other surrounding circumstances which the more we thought about it, the more we felt God saying 'no'.  That was hard. Very hard.

One of the main reasons we had to say no, was that we knew that all other ministry would have to go on hold. We had to once again face the reality of whether we were going to follow God's call on our lives and how we believe he has been and is leading us re future ministry, or whether we were going to follow our heart longings?  

That incident got me going over the topic of :

'Kids'

.....or the lack thereof......and I began jotting down some thoughts about infertility as we worked through the whole issue yet again, and I had been thinking of whether to put them into a blogpost....so finally here it is....

"Infertility" is a loaded word.  It's loaded enough when you are within your own culture but what about in a cross-cultural situation.  Are there further implications?

Infertility is a very difficult and personal issue for any couple to work through.  We are no exception.  Issues arise that are just never issues for those who have been able to fall pregnant and give birth to their own kids fairly easily. When we were newly married we never thought they would be issues for us either!

Here are some of those issues:

- Grief - if someone we know and love dies, we grieve that loss.  Being unable to fall pregnant month after month and year after year also has its own version of grief.  And a couple can feel very alone in that grief.  What was once hoped for, becomes a possibility lost and loss brings grief.  And unlike unmet expectations of hoping for a bigger house or a new TV, this is not a sinful materialistic desire, but a basic function of humanity that God ordained "Multiply and fill the earth".  This grief then brings questions of God's will, love, sovereignty and purposes, along with a new type of learning to trust Him and that His ways are always perfect.

- Decisions - there are decisions, questions, research on options, medical tests and treatments, which ones to pursue, as well as how far and how long to pursue them....I don't know if you have heard of the Duggar family in the USA who have become famous through a reality TV show featuring their family of 19kids.  Recently Mrs Michelle Duggar was being interviewed after their intimation that they may even consider adopting their 20th child and she said :

"We have friends that have adopted children who are a great influence in our lives, and we have talked about their experiences. So it's something we've considered. We have to know for sure that is what God wants for us to do," she said in her interview with People. "When he gives us a child [through pregnancy], there is no doubt in our minds that is what He wants, but when it comes to adoption, we would have to know for sure that was His will. http://www.today.com/moms/duggars-consider-adopting-their-20th-child-1C9081219 

Even in this there are all kinds of processes to consider, not least if it is a road God even wants a couple to walk down.  I fully identified with the sentiments of Michelle Duggar.

- Financial issues - whether its the cost of adoption (especially international adoption) or medical procedures - these are costs that 'fertile' couples just don't face.  So then it becomes a situation where weeks and maybe months or years are spent in heart searching and discussion and uncertainty as to whether or not it is being a good steward of God's money to spend such huge amounts of money when the outcome may still mean no child at the end of it....for us this was especially true when we believed God wanted us focused at the time on preparing to serve him in a missions capacity overseas.

- This is to say nothing of the moral issues involved - medical technology has so much to offer and a couple may have to work through the ethics of IVF and other options.

- I could go on and list other such issues as being pre-judged by others as to why you don't have children, the possibility of loss of fellowship as friends and peers who all have children socialise together when the kids get together, and no-one to share and pass on your life stories and heritage with or to care for you like your own kids do when you get older.

I'll put some more thoughts in 'part 2' about it all with the added implications of living in another culture.....