My Aunt Starla gave me a book called, Hannah’s Hope and if you know someone going through infertility, miscarriage or adoption loss, I would highly recommend this book to them. It took me awhile to read Hannah’s Hope because as I was walking through our infertility journey, I was reading about many other women walking in my same shoes, but for many, many more years. I couldn’t help but imagine myself walking their same journey, so I had to put it down. I had to stay positive and continue to keep our hope alive. It was too hard to imagine that their fate could also be mine.
Hannah’s Hope brought me comfort and taught me ways to cope with my heartache, but most of all, made me feel as if I’m not alone after all. And now, it’s helping guide me to move forward with faith and hope and to make the right decision as we are faced with the toughest decision of our lives.
Kris and I are in a stage of simply waiting. Waiting to know which path to take and waiting for it to feel right in our hearts. Once we are confident we made the right decision, we will move forward, but for now, we wait. In Hannah’s Hope, there was a poem written by Russell Kelfer and like the author of the book, I fell in love with this poem. And maybe you will too.
Wait
Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried.
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, He replied.
I pleaded, and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait.”
“Wait? You say wait?” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why.
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I’m claiming your Word.
“My future, and all to which I can relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to ‘wait’?
I’m needing a ‘yes’, a go-ahead sign,
Or even a ‘no’, to which I can resign.
“And Lord, you have promised that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking: I need a reply!”
Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, “You must wait.”
So I slumped in my chair; defeated and taut
And grumbled to God; “So I’m waiting, for what?”
He seemed then to kneel and His eyes met with mine
And He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, darken the sun,
Raise the dead, cause the mountains to run.
“All you see I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want, but you wouldn’t know Me.
You’d not know the depth of My love for each saint;
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint.
“You’d not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You’d not learn to trust, just by knowing I’m there.
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me,
When darkness and silence was all you could see.
“You would never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.
“The glow of My comfort late in the night;
The faith that I give when you walk without sight;
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you ask
For an infinite God who makes what you have last.
“And you never would know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’
Yes, your dreams for that loved one o’ernight could come true,
But the loss! if you lost what I’m doing in you.
“So be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though oft’ My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all…is still…wait.”
