Barren woman, ONLY GOD! – Judges 13

“ ² Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children. ³ And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. ⁴ Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. ⁵ For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” ⁶ So the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A Man of God came to me, and His countenance was like the countenance of the Angel of God, very awesome; but I did not ask Him where He was from, and He did not tell me His name. ⁷ And He said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son...  ⁸ Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, and said, “O my Lord, please let the Man of God whom You sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born.” ⁹ And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came to the woman again as she was sitting in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her. ¹⁰ Then the woman ran in haste and told her husband, and said to him, “Look, the Man who came to me the other day has just now appeared to me!” ¹¹ So Manoah arose and followed his wife. When he came to the Man, he said to Him, “Are You the Man who spoke to this woman?” And He said, “I am.” ¹² Manoah said, “Now let Your words come to pass! What will be the boy’s rule of life, and his work?” ¹³ So the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful…  ¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain You, and we will prepare a young goat for You.” ¹⁶ And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Though you detain Me, I will not eat your food. But if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to the Lord.” …. ¹⁹ So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord. And He did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife looked on…. ²⁴ So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him ….”

I remember how as a teenager while everyone was looking up to the options of what one day they would become, I only dreamed about becoming a wife and a mother, just like my mom!  That wasn’t too popular among my friends, but it was ok with me.  So as I got married, I knew the time would come but I wanted to enjoy my time with my new beloved husband but after a two year period, it was time for us to have company, we wanted our family to grow.  But it didn’t happened on that second year, it didn’t happened on the third, or the forth, so we decided to do the human thing. We went to fertility doctors and at the end got treated for a year with pills to increase the possibilities for a pregnancy, and didn’t happen either.  Then we decided to leave it alone; we knew about God but had NO relationship with Him whatsoever, so we had NO HOPE!!!

 And with such hopelessness we continue to live for self indulgence; it was such an empty existence, sad, sad!  Nothing satisfied us, we bought all our eyes seen and wanted it, and still were empty!    As a barren woman for seven years many times I questioned, why me?  I cried many times, and weep to God, over my “fate”.  Over those years many pregnancy tests were bought to check if I finally was or not, since I would go the same place I was quite ashamed to go on the last few times.

But God knew my heart, and HE had compassion on me!  As we went on a honeymoon getaway to celebrate our seven wedding anniversary, God looked at me with favor, and HE DID IT! I got pregnant! I couldn’t explained the happiness of my heart, but immediately I praise The Lord, for I was soooooo unexplainable happy!  And I say unexplainable because although we had been happy for the last seven years, I had just decided to quit my job due to stress related environment and that meant a lost on our income. But I didn’t care, and so we went on a honeymoon getaway, and right there, THE LORD provided me something I had never experienced before the hope of becoming a mother, a pregnant wife, and the joyful moments of the first pregnancy.

This is what happened to Manoah’s wife, Samson’s mom. (In my quest about her name, I found that according to tradition she was called Hazelelponi or Zʻllpunith. She was a daughter of Etam and sister of Ishma.) This woman had children and seems like she had lost all hope until the angel of the LORD showed up in her life, and gave her the good news including some guidelines to care for herself during the incubation time (pregnancy).  I’m sure her excitement was on high as she rushed to her husband with the news; and she pass that excitement to him for immediately he moved on to pray for a confirmation of the good news.  Though it doesn’t specify when exactly The Lord provided the confirmation, it does says that the angel of God, appeared once again to her, and since she knew her husband asked for that confirmation as the angel appeared she rushed to call the husband. He came, and before their eyes God answered the husband’s prayer! Case CONFIRMED!!! What else, then? It’s just a matter of time.  In the meantime they committed to do as they were told by the angel of the Lord to follow the guidelines and raise the child for the glory of God, becoming the Samson of The Bible we read here.  Glory to GOD!!! HE DID it!!!

Today, for you women who’ve tried the impossible to conceive, you stop whatever you’re doing on your own, stop trying to place yourself in “good terms” to become pregnant and place yourself at our heavenly Father’s feet. Humble your heart and confess that HE is GOD; and NOT ONE can do what HE can. Worship HIM for whom HE is and for what HE has given you already; because happiness comes from the happy things of life, but joy ONLY comes from God! Ask HIM to allow you to have the joy of the Lord which is your strength, and commit to follow HIM wholeheartedly, and give it all to HIM, put every care in HIS hands, and let HIM show up and shout out in your life.  He did it for me not one, not twice, but three times, and two miscarriages in between children. AND IF HE DID IT FOR ME, HE CAN DO IT FOR YOU TOO!!!

I pray as you read my story, you be encouraged to seek the Lord’ Word, to convince you that there were many other cases like this one, in the Bible, Samson’s mother was not the first one, and surely not the last one either.  I pray you realized that besides this woman, there were many others who like me, and perhaps like you, who had a deep desire to bring forth children, unsuccessfully. But that because in our times of pain, we seek refuge in HIM who created the heavens and the earth, of the visible and the invisible, we found a pearl of a great price, the biggest treasure there is, JESUS!  The gift from God to us; and a relationship with our Creator whom in His love, and mercy for us, overshadowed us with His presence, allowing HIS light to come forth within us, giving us the gift of motherhood.  I pray you recognize HE can do something beautiful of and in you, even when nothing had been created or formed just yet.  I pray as you seek HIM, and commit yourself to raise the child for HIM and His glory, I pray HE overshadows you with His presence and bless you with that gift of motherhood, for the glory of GOD, I pray in JESUS name, AMEN!!!