Isaiah 44:3-4, Good News Translation

“I will give water to the thirsty land and make streams flow on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your children and my blessing on your descendants. They will thrive like well-watered grass, like willows by streams of running water.”

The Willow Story Part One

Behind every name is a story. And hopefully this one that my daughter can give hope and encouragement to someone who is still waiting for their miracle in a blue or pink blanket.

In 2021, my husband and I suffered our first miscarriage before I even realized I was pregnant. After a few tests, my nurse confirmed this was not an ordinary cycle. It happened the same day I was supposed to take our sixteen-month-old Koah to his checkup. But instead, I began to grieve a baby that I not only never got to meet, but didn’t know about until they were gone. A few months later, after taking time to grieve and settle down in a new place, we decided to start trying for baby number two. Koah was a surprise and happened quickly, so I believed the same thing would happen again. One year passed, and we were still not pregnant. I didn’t know what was going on.

I began to get really concerned with the possibility that something was wrong. Another five months passed, and the tests were negative after negative. I then made an appointment to get tests done to see if there was anything on my side hindering us from conceiving. But that anxiety turned into tears of joy when the nurse came in and said they were unable to run tests because I was four weeks pregnant! The same day, we saw a double rainbow over our house, and I had this amazing confident feeling that our promise was being fulfilled. Everything was so perfect – until it wasn’t. One month later, sadly we lost our baby. I was so angry, bitter, and felt like God just watched this happen and refused to intervene. I wouldn’t speak or have time with Him for weeks. But I knew better. What He did was never leave me. When the Bible says Jesus wept; that was confirmation for us to know without a doubt that Jesus will be right there; weeping with us; with all the comfort we would ever need in Him. But I could feel my faith somehow being strengthened and even refined through all the waiting and suffering.

God isn’t one to wait until you get to the “fulfillment finish line,” but He walks with you throughout the journey, in the rough waters and the green pastures. Still, I struggled with the terrible “what if” that we would not be able to give Koah a sibling and grow our family. At my follow-up appointment to make sure there was nothing left in my womb, my OB said there is a chance that secondary infertility could be at play, or that I became a “hostile environment.” I wept all that afternoon and rebuked the enemy like crazy! I started speaking verses over my womb and thanking God that there was nothing missing and nothing broken. My womb will fulfill the purpose He created it for. Exactly one month after our second miscarriage, I was with my best friend in North Carolina, where we were both speaking at a women’s conference. On the way back to Alabama, I felt this big tug to turn in my Bible to Isaiah 44; a chapter I had never read before. I started weeping when I read the 3rd and 4th verse.

Please come back next week to read The Willow Story, Part Two.