An Ode to the Barren Woman
“Increase is here,” we’ve screamed and shouted over and over since January 1, 2023. For the Lamptey household, this prophecy didn’t come with ease, nor what we believed was adequate preparation, nor what we thought was a good time for us; however, it came!
Most people know that after my wife and I got married, we had our own plans of being in the honeymoon stage, just her and I, for a few years before children would ever come into the picture. Unfortunately for us, little did we know that while we fantasized of such a future, God sat and laughed on His throne. Not only did we have our son much sooner than we ever expected; it seems we blinked and now have our second, a beautiful daughter. Anyway, let’s fast forward to why we’re all here, my thoughts and experience of increase in my family this year.
“Sing, O barren, You who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, You who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate Than the children of the married woman,” says the LORD. [2] “Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your stakes. [3] For you shall expand to the right and to the left, And your descendants will inherit the nations, And make the desolate cities inhabited.” Isaiah 54:1-3 NKJV
Now I will remind you that this message of hope was one given to a nation whose people had been in captivity for a long time, endured massive losses, shame, and several disappointments. If there’s anything that should have been lost to these people by now, it would have been their ability to enlarge and stretch their dreams and hopes. But what I like is that God never told the barren woman to produce the children, since this would have been an impossible ask for a barren person to do by her her own strength. From the time my wife told me she was pregnant, I became so preoccupied in how unprepared I felt to be having a second child, not having what I wished to have had, not being where I wished to have been.
Insecurities arose, anxieties heightened, but in a moment of illumination, God showed and explained to me through this Scripture that the expected role of the barren woman (the one who has no strength in herself to produce a baby) was to sing, shout and rejoice because God could do what she couldn’t for herself. You see, increase is never available without the tangibility of God’s grace and mercy. However, the problem would persist as long as the barren woman only sees and focuses on her barrenness. Not only would she never see herself having a child, she would never be ready for the more children than even the one who may seem primed and prepared for that blessing (the married woman).
From that day, I understood that increase in my family was a settled matter in heaven, and that it was my wife and I who God needed to work on to be able to contain the increase. I say this to remind you that the increase you seek, especially with relation to family and children, does not come on a silver platter; It will take your full partnership and participation paired with God’s faithfulness to see its manifestation! While it was Him alone who did the wonders of increasing my family, His means of operation was not without my families cooperation. God had to take my wife and I, and put us through the expanding and the stretching, the lengthening and the strengthening. You will be stretched beyond your limits and current capabilities, stretched beyond your patience, stretched beyond your current level of grace; but God says DO NOT HOLD BACK! We certainly felt the pressures, the stress and the weight of it all; but in the end, we’re so glad we did not spare, nor did we did we hold back.
If you are trusting and believing God for a son or daughter, a husband or wife, or whatever you determine as increase in your family, I reiterate what our President declared over each one of our lives. Each one of us is destined to receive increase in our lives. You may feel unprepared or unqualified for the increase that is coming but that is exactly when God sometimes does His best work. Simply trust in the Lord, believe He is able, rejoice because it is coming, and enlarge in your preparation; do not hold back!
And as the Lord taught me to both pray and declare increase over my household, my prayer for you is the Lord’s declaration over you: that as He has done for me and my family, May the Lord indeed increase you and your children in Jesus Name!
“The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children.” Psalm 115:14 KJV