Blind Obedience

by Emily Welch

My husband and I both grew up Baptist.
I was baptized at six years old. At the time, salvation felt like the finish line.
I now know it is just the start of the race. 

When Aaron and I started dating, we attended Grace Point faithfully.
We were married in October 2010 and had our son, Drake, in August 2013. 

Up until this point, life was easy. It was all unfolding the way I imagined and intended. 
Then, we began trying for our second child in 2015.

As we walked through months of unanswered pregnancy prayers, I started working out at Orange County Fitness. Eventually, Aaron and I tried out Bridge Point Fellowship feeling led to make a transition. I loved my church home, but needed a place to plug in and grow deeper in my faith.

We tried our first service in 2017, a time when I was discouraged and devastated from unsuccessfully trying to grow our family. We found exactly what we needed. 

We both joined small groups and started serving.
I found women who had also walked through infertility.
I found women who prayed for and with me.
I found women who are now friends.

I was surrounded by encouragement, but Aaron was ready to give up trying. He felt like our life was on pause and revolving around getting pregnant. Through seeking answers in our failures, we found out that IVF would be our only option. 

I remember driving home from that appointment completely quiet.
Aaron broke the silence and said he was willing to do whatever it took to have a baby.

We moved forward with IVF and had 12 embryos, 12 chances. 
Looking back, I can’t help but think about the twelve tribes of Israel.

Then, I miscarried at six weeks.
I remember leaving the office so mad at God.
Why would God let this happen to me?

I know now that God gets blamed for a lot of things that aren’t his fault.

August 5, 2018

I have come to realize that God is tring to strengthen my faith through my miscarriage.
I never once doubted my pregnancy or considered miscarriage being an option.

I don’t want this. I don’t want to feel this pain or this grief. 

I wrote my honest feelings and finally brought the truth to God.
I realized that prayer didn’t have to be pretty, positive words. 
I realized that God could handle my real, raw emotions. 
I could be honest about the depths of my hurt.
I could be honest about my doubt and pain.

In December 2018, I had another miscarriage.

My journal entries from January were full of heartache, but wrapped in a promise.

January 21, 2019

What is God’s plan for this?
Will I ever have more children?
What do I do with these emotions?
Where do I go from there?
Why is God so quiet right now?
Will I ever have a breakthrough?
Why do I feel so alone and forgotten?
Why would a good God give me such a dark path?

January 22, 2019
Today the Lord spoke to me after reading a devotional, Blind Obedience.
You’re barren so my power can be shown through you.

I decided that God’s plan would prevail. 
I knew that He was going to have His way.
So, I slowly began letting go of my own plan.
I started walking in blind obedience, one step at a time.

I began seeing rainbows everywhere.
I knew His power would be shown.
I knew His promise was coming.

March 24, 2019
A day on the calendar I haven’t been looking forward to. A day that has been creeping up on me for the last 9 months. Today would have been my due date. This morning my mind fought to not go to what “should be.”  I know that today I am closer to God than I was 9 months ago. 

I am sharing this to tell you that I thought I wa buried,
but instead, I was planted in order to BLOOM! 

I had always wondered how people could go through these heart-wrenching, life-changing things and still say, “God is good!” Those circumstances don’t look so good.

However, my soul was hungry for something more. 
My soul was seeking that kind of trust before my circumstances.
Those deep questions of how people can trust after heartache were no coincidence.

God knew what my heart needed.
Not another baby, even though He knows that’s what my heart desires. 

My heart needed more of HIM! 
More wisdom, more knowledge, more understanding of who He really is!0

I used to think and pray, “I want Your will Lord” but what I was really saying was,
“I want Your will but only if it will give me what I want, all that messy stuff, that painful and heartbreaking stuff? Yeah, I don’t want any of that.” 

He knew that without my struggles, I would have no need to draw closer to Him.
I wouldn’t need to trust His plan and believe that His plan is greater than mine.

Do I wish we were holding that baby today? Yes, absolutely.
Would I trade my divine appointment with God for it? Absolutely not. 

He is the giver of all good gifts. He gives and takes away.
I am trusting that my plan is not His plan, but His plan will be greater. 

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
Isaiah 55:8  

Today, I don’t want to focus on how my plans failed but rather how God's plans have prevailed. 

I reached a place where I realized that He truly is better.
His presence is better than any promise.

I trusted that His plan was better, but I was about to see 
how abundantly and incredibly more His ways are than ours. 

May 30, 2019

I have come to the end of myself and feel like God is asking me,
“Are you going to keep trying this yourself or are you going to give this to me?” 

I thought I had surrendered, but I was still working in my own ways to have a baby.

I am believing that God is going to give us another child, but it will not be with IVF. 

For now, God has called me to move forward.
Moving forward comes along with getting rid of everything that has kept me thinking my life should have turned out a different way. My life is turning out the way God has planned. There is not one thing that has happened to me that God didn’t already know about. 

I began cleaning out the room we had prepared for our baby. On the first day, I went to start taking things out, but I just couldn't do it. I felt convicted and knew that it was time. So, the following day I went back into the room and removed everything to get rid of it. It was a hard day.

I was facedown on the floor in full surrender.
I listened to worship music and grieved the life I thought I would live.
I was finally fully facing my reality. 

Once I was done, I felt a weight lifted. 
I was filled with supernatural strength. 
That moment of obedience marked me.

During this time, we had also gotten a letter in the mail stating we needed to make the payment to continue storing our embryos. I felt like God was asking, Do you really trust me?

We had the money, but I wanted God to confirm our next step.

Throughout this season, I had six different people say that God was going to give me a baby without IVF. Many even had dreams that I was pregnant. I even had a dream where I had a baby that looked right into my eyes, a baby boy.

I continued to pray about the embryos and never had peace. 
During one prayer, I heard God speak Job 1:21.
And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."

Nothing was mine to keep. 
The Lord gives and takes away.
They were never solely mine. 
They were and will always be His.

I still wrestled with the idea of donating them. Then, CORM called and talked with me about the decision to not continue storing the embryos. Doctors assured me that they had found the issue from the prior miscarriages. They even offered to store our embryos free of charge for six months. I felt like God was giving me a small gift to help me through this difficult season and decision. He allowed me a way to not worry, while also continuing to walk forward in obedience.

I continued to take steps that seemed to take me farther away from my promise.

but I clung to the truth that God keeps every promise and can always make a way.
I believed that He would give me a child without IVF, just as He said. 

With every new step in His will, I gained an unexplainable, unfathomable peace.
Peace that only comes from following God and staying in step with Him.

I began seeing signs of promise everywhere I went. 

While I was serving at church one day, I kept getting familiar feelings of Christmas.

Christmas was six months away at this point. Then, as women brought their kids to be checked in to the nursery, I felt something telling me, That is going to be you.

On June 7, 2019, the Lord reminded me, When the time is right, I will make it happen.

Later that month, my mom was talking to a lady at the bank.
My mom shared with her my desire for a baby and she responded,
You tell her not to worry anymore, she will be pregnant in the next six months. 

Six months. 

In July, I felt God speaking to me, trying to get my attention.
I had been in a slump despite the signs and feelings. 

My Power of a Praying Parent book shared James 1:6.
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one 
who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

Then, I thought of Hebrews 11:1.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen.

Then, Mark 11:24.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, 
believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

I needed to believe.
I need to worship like I had already received. 

I sat down with Aaron and told him that we needed to talk.
I told him that something was going to happen.
I didn’t know how or when, but I believed. 

At the end of August, I received a call about a baby that would be up for adoption upon birth.  Even though my heart longed for a baby, I knew this was not God’s something for us. I didn’t feel peace, but silently worried I was passing up our only chance. I leaned into God to guide me. 

He opened doors and provided the baby with a great family. I was so happy for them, while simultaneously sad for us. When the time came for delivery and we were able to go and meet the baby, I had total joy. That was God’s strength in obedience. 

As I sat beside Drake while he held a baby that could have been his sibling,
I was overwhelmed with peace. Then, Drake said, “There’s a rainbow on your forehead.”
God’s promise. It was coming. 

In September 2019, I started worshiping like I was already pregnant.
I journaled, I will bring all glory and praise to God when He delivers this miracle.

October 13, 2019

I went to see Kari Jobe with my first DGroup to lead. Kari stopped in the middle of worship and spoke over the barren women in the room. She declared life over our wombs. There will be life in my womb. 

I spent the next few months worshiping and diving into God’s Word. I read through Acts, in awe at all of God’s miracles. My commentary said, Miracles have no value unless they point to God and His truth.

The truth was I was living in God’s will. 
I was living in God’s best for me. 

God wasn’t punishing me, He was pursuing me and preparing me. 
He began connecting the dots and revealing His grander plan.
I reflected back on all of the nudges, winks, and revelations. 

God was giving Himself to me. 
I needed to give my all to Him.

December 2019 Facebook Post:

11 months ago God revealed to me that I was going to have another child despite our struggles with infertility for four years. After two IVF transfers and two miscarriages I felt him speak straight to my heart on January 22, 2019 after reading a Proverbs 31 devotional over John 9.

Jesus healed a blind man and His disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” 

In that moment I felt God whispering to my heart, “You are barren so that my power can be seen through you.” I had never felt God speak so clearly to me more than in that moment. As soon as I got home I wrote it down and began to pray and ask God to give me a sign that I was supposed to believe in this miracle. 

Over the next six months six people individually told me that they felt like God had revealed to them that I was going to have a baby naturally without IVF. God used six people to give me these promises. I prayed for the faith to believe it. Anytime I got a sign from Him I would cling to it until my faith felt weak and then I would beg for another one. Every time I asked for a sign He would always provide it. 

Three separate things happened that led me to believe that something was going to happen in December. I didn’t know if it would be this December or in December two years from now. During this time I searched for God in ways like never before. Every verse, every song, every devotional, every preaching I would search for Him and I would find Him. 

God revealed Himself to me so much this year and I wrote down every sign I got from Him. God changed me through my struggles. I began to see things differently. I began to see people differently. I gave my heart to Jesus when I was just a little girl at six years old but I didn’t fully surrender my life to Him until I was thirty years old. I grew deeper in my faith through my struggles and I truly believed that God would deliver what He had promised me. I was able to be content with the way my life had turned out even if it wasn’t the way I had imagined. I was free. Free from the burden of trying to have control over my life. 

On November 26, 2019 I saw a positive pregnancy test for the first time in 4 years without the help of science. No IVF, no shots, no medication.

Just God. Just as He promised. 

It was here. I couldn’t believe it. The miracle that had been promised to me was unfolding right before my eyes. I am in awe and so thankful that God has chosen me to live out this miracle for His glory. I will give Him all the glory and praise for this blessing He has so graciously given to us.

In February 2020, I watched my son, Drake, be baptized, while carrying my second child. Our pastor prayed over him declaring that he would be a man with faith that can move mountains. A man that speaks of things that will come to pass. 

Drake had been a source of childlike faith throughout our valley of infertility. 
He looked for rainbows with me and encouraged me on hard days. 
His faith for his little brother helped move our mountain. 

On July 22, 2020, Sawyer Welch was born. 
We were in the same room and had the same nurse as we had seven years prior with Drake.
Seven years, the year of completion. 
God had completed us. 
Just as he said.

As I look back on the journey to our promise, I am flooded with gratitude and awe.
Through every high and every heartbreak, God stood beside me. 

October 18, 2022

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 
John 15:1-2

God pruned me and took away things that kept me from being close to Him. 
Before my struggles with fertility, my life had no fruit. 

God didn’t cause these struggles but He did allow them. 

I see now the purpose:

• God drew me closer to Him, so that I can know Him.

• God grew and pruned me, so that I can bear fruit. 

• God walked me through a valley to share my story for His glory.

• God taught me how to want Him more than anything else in this world.

I was looking for a baby to bring me the kind of fulfillment and satisfaction that only God can give.
He is the answer to every prayer and every need we have. It all starts and ends with Him. 

Sandy Adams says, “When God prunes you it hurts. You’re tempted to think that He’s killing you; it’s painful but when you submit, when you yield to His pruning knife, you’ll bounce back with a wonderful, bigger bounty of fruit than you ever thought possible.” 

My answered prayer and fulfilled promise came to pass in my surrender.
I had to let go of my plans and trust that God’s way is truly better. 

If you are waiting on a promise or being painfully pruned, remember the truth

You are safe with Him.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 
Psalm 46:1

You are near to Him.
Because of the cross, you  have immediate access to Him.

You are growing.
Those miscarriages softened my heart in a way that never would have happened.
My faith grew. My compassion grew. My character grew.

You have purpose.
I found my greatest purpose from my deepest pit.
I found it through small steps of blind obedience.

You have a story that is unfolding to give God glory. 
As you march forward in hopes of a miracle, know that it is all for Him.
Every valley magnifies His victory. Every heartbreak magnifies His hope.