All of the waiting can be hard, but the dreaded two-week wait that occurs in every monthly cycle is probably the hardest waiting of all. It's an emotional rollercoaster when you're endlessly caught in a cycle of hope and then disappointment. It can become such a difficult space to navigate for couples who go through it month after month. How do you approach the situation with faith while also being realistic that things might never work out as you hope? How do you pray for what you long for but also protect your heart? Having experienced secondary infertility for several years now, I have a few thoughts and ideas about some of the most (and least!) constructive things you can pray for while in this season of waiting. I've pulled together six suggestions, each inspired by the biblical story of Hannah found in 1 Samuel 1. She was a Hebrew woman who faced many years of infertility before eventually giving birth to Samuel, who became an Old Testament prophet. Please know that I am not offering up this story as a like-for-like comparison with my own or with yours or as any promise or guarantee for a miracle. Faith is not a formula, and I don't think it's helpful to lift God's promises to someone else from the Bible and to try to claim them as our own. But I do think that studying other women in the Bible who struggled with infertility can equip us with helpful spiritual guidance and provide us with some pointers about how best to pray.
Video by Skylar Cochran Thumbnail & Stock footage courtesy of Canva.com