1.0 INTRODUCTION
Delayed pregnancy / fertility arises in the form of long periods of infertility or childlessness. Known cases of infertility are demonstrated in the examples listed below:

• Abraham and Sarah
• Isaac and Rebecca
• Jacob and Rachael
• Manoa and wife
• Elkanah and Hannah
• Zacarías and Isabel, etc.

The rate at which delayed pregnancy / fertility catches many women off guard is becoming alarming. Many marriages in our land today have been destroyed due to the perception of childlessness or infertility. Couples run from one herbalist, spiritualist, or hospital to another in search of babies. It can separate families and has led to polygamous situations. Some even end up on bar beaches where they wait for the mermaid spirits for some sleepless nights. They are willing to do anything in cash or in kind to achieve your heart’s desires. As such, they are often scammed, mutilated, and killed. The questions that arise in this situation are:

• Should today’s childless couples just pray for babies?
• Whose fault is it?
• Is it caused by God or is God aware of this situation?
• Why did God allow Satan to pass this on to us?
• Will we ever conceive?

An attempt will be made to answer these questions towards the last part of this article. Some people have also turned to some medical knowledge, such as in vitro fertilization, which helps some childless couples conceive. Some people have viewed delayed pregnancy or childlessness as God’s punishment for sin.

2.0 UNDERSTANDING THE FACTS ABOUT DELAYED FERTILITY
God can work through many means to call us to faith, but it is wrong to interpret childlessness as a curse.

Children are gifts that come from God if we ask them. The answer may come in a child of your own, a child to adopt, a forest child, or a group of children in the neighborhood or in a church. Infertility can present a couple with an urgent crisis of faith. Not being able to have children raises profound questions about the purpose of marriage, the value of spouses, and their sense of belonging to the Christian community.

Why do couples get married? Couples marry to enjoy sex, procreate (have children) and have partners who help in life. The purpose of marriage is not just for procreation. So if there is a problem of childlessness or infertility or delayed pregnancy, it is assumed that the marriage will still stand for the other purposes of the contract. But for most Christians today, the opposite is true. For them, the lack of children can seem to refine their relationship with God, since God expects his followers to be like Christ and this sometimes involves pain. Recognizing our ultimate goal to become more like Christ reminds us that marriage and motherhood are not our only purposes in life. Having children is not our only purpose in life. Some atrocities have been and continue to be committed by some childless couples today:
• Sarah took matters into her own hands by offering Hagar to Abraham. He had trouble believing God’s promises and waiting on the Lord.

Likewise, some of us encourage our husbands to marry second wives (Genesis 16: 1-14) in order to have children at all costs. This topic will be fully discussed in my upcoming presentation on DIVORCE AMONG CHRISTIANS in later issues of this magazine.

In the Old Testament, a childless woman was considered a failure and was a social embarrassment to the husband. The case remains the same for women today. Children are a very important part of the economic structure of society, a source of work for the family because they take care of elderly parents. Some were forced to hand over their maids to their husbands or marry other wives.

Husbands were allowed to divorce sterile wives. These women are broken to shed tears at night. Things haven’t really changed since then.

3.0: TYPICAL CASES OF DELAYED FERTILITY
Several couples in the Bible endured long periods of infertility before finally having children:
• Abraham and Sarah stayed seventy-five (75) years after their marriage before having Isaac (Genesis 16: 1-4; 21: 1-7).
• Isaac and Rebekah stayed twenty (20) years before having Esau and Jacob, father of Israel (Genesis 25: 19-26).
• Jacob and Rachael waited eight (8) years before having Joseph, who became the ruler of Israel (Genesis 29: 31-30: 24).
• Manoah and his wife spent several years before Samson became a judge in Israel (Judges 13).
• Elkanah and Hannah spent several years before giving birth to Samuel, who became a prophet in Israel (1. Sam. 1).
• Zacharias and Elizabeth also spent several years before having John the Baptists, the forerunner of Jesus Christ (Luke 1).

If you take the case of Zacharias and Elizabeth in the proper approach, where they were both godly people, be careful to obey all the laws of God both in spirit and letter, priestly origin, temple service body and elders but not children. We can carefully conclude, like David, that children are gifts and a blessing from God, but childlessness is not a curse, but rather God’s inability to bestow gifts on couples (Ps. 127: 3). As many cases as those listed above are with us at our various scholarship centers and the longest cases have been replaced by adopted children.

4.0: SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERS
The need arises to answer some of the questions asked by childless couples, and here are some answers provided as additional insights:
to. Should today’s childless couples just pray for babies?
Yes. Just pray believing that God will answer your prayers. Children are a gift from God and it is only God who can give that gift to whom he decides and at his will (Romans 9: 15-16; Exodus 33:19). Those who preceded us only prayed in faith and received their gifts (Genesis 15: 7-8).

B. Whose fault is it?
It is no one’s fault, especially if the relationship between you and your God is cordial and between true friends. So the blame may be on the enemy and if childless couples understand this, their duty will be to fight Satan for his gifts under their control (Matt. 11:12).

vs. Is it caused by God or is God aware of this situation?
God is aware of the situation and has allowed it to happen so that the couple’s faith can be tested. After all, Abraham was tested and Zacharias and Elizabeth were tested alike. So why not you? (Luke 1:25).

D. Why did God allow Satan to pass this on to us?
As mentioned in the body of the writing, there was no case of a barren, infertile or childless woman in the Bible, except David’s wife Michal, Saul’s daughter who was cursed by the husband for despising or mocking the husband while he praised and danced. God (2 Sam. 6: 16-23).

me. Are we ever going to conceive?
Yes. The childless couple must conceive since others conceived before them. The word of God is always new among us. There will never be a barren or infertile woman among us (Deut. 7:14; Gen. 18:14).
The writer was a fertility victim for seven (7) good years and when God’s time / decision to give us the gift for free came, we had a bouncing baby (a well-designed, well-rounded gift that made us forget the past plague years of lobsters, a perfect gift without any flaws). Throughout the long period of infertility, we resign ourselves to God trusting in His supremacy and we promise to give ourselves that gift. But, we never gave in to prayer and fasting to stop and reduce the power of Stan and his demons used as agents of torment to deny us God’s blessings and create unhappiness in our marriage. After all this, and when God’s time came, we had a baby like Sarah.

5.0: CONCLUSION
We must realize that delayed pregnancy / fertility is not the same as infertility or sterility, but many couples out of ignorance or lack of patience rename it infertility or lack of children. Remember that all the women mentioned in the Bible, namely Anna, Sarah, Rachel, Elizabeth, Rebekah, and Manoah’s wife, had children of their own after all. Except for David’s wife (Michal / Saul’s daughter) whose case was a curse, there was no case of an infertile woman in the Bible.

When a situation like delayed pregnancy arises in our families, we often ask ourselves “whose fault is it?” and “Why did God allow this to happen to me?” But, Paul had a similar case in 2 Cor. 12: 7-9 and God, who was aware of the situation, replied: “My grace is sufficient for you.” From then on, Paul never spoke of the problem again. In such situations, the first thing to understand is that God has allowed it but has not caused it. If we do not find theses and if those who preceded us found them, how do we tell the goodness of God to those around us? Remember that if there is no proof, there will be no testimony in our lives.

Anyone who wants to become like Christ must be ready to suffer pain. If we recognize our greatest pains in becoming like Christ, we will remember that marriage and motherhood are not our true purpose of creation. Having children will not allow us to get to heaven or even reach maturity in Christ. Therefore, our pursuit of children at all costs should not be done with the emphasis shown by those of the world.

Once childlessness or delayed pregnancy is accepted as part of a couple’s life struggle, the pain of childlessness must have run its course and as such, the couple begins to meet needs. that surround them, which until now have gone unnoticed. They can surrender their sense of longing to have children to God. They can help out in churches and fellowship centers as teachers, counselors, youth workers, friends, and confidants of the church.

Finally, childless couples must resign themselves to faith and trust God completely. Furthermore, the need to always be joyful in all situations must be emphasized again here (Phil. 4: 4-6) as obstacles are overcome only by those who are joyful in the Lord. Let us resolve to bear God’s cross in the way it was provided for us and also to receive his problems in the way that we receive his gifts upon us (Matthew 16:24; Mark 10: 28-30).