Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Patience (08/21/08)
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TITLE: The Promise | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jennifer Klein
08/23/08 -
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“Sarah I...I don’t feel right about this.”
She whipped her compact closed and turned on him. “What other choice do we have?”
“We could wait, see if it could just happen naturally.”
“We already tried that, David,” she spat, “and look where it got us. Eight years of trying and then…then…” she choked, “Then God took him from us. Before we’d even held him!” A black streak ran down her cheek.
The car lurched to a stop at a light.
Sarah set her jaw. “If we don’t do this now we may never have another chance. We’re getting older David. Maybe it’s already too late.”
Their car pulled into the fertility clinic’s parking lot. David lingered in his seat a moment after his wife’s door slammed behind her. God…is this what you want? Is this how you plan to fulfill your promise to me? He sighed. There didn’t seem to be any choice now.
The doctors and specialists expressed optimism about achieving a successful pregnancy, and Sarah seemed hopeful again for the first time in a year. But David found his mind constantly wandering, tracing the road back to that afternoon on the hillside where he had felt the Spirit of God moving in his heart, promising him his heart’s desire. Then the pregnancy. And the loss. Oh, the loss.
“What? I’m sorry,” he found himself replying to the doctor.
“Honey!” scolded Sarah under her breath.
“I said, Mr. Abram, that this could be a costly process.”
“Oh, uh, sure. That’s fine.”
In the following months the tension in his marriage grew. If the implantation didn’t take he wasn’t sure they would make it. And all the time he felt that somehow he was betraying God.
A final implantation procedure. Another negative pregnancy test. Sarah sobbed as she packed her suitcase. There were no words left between them. She drove down the street and he sat down on the edge of their bed. His bed. There was a thump on the ground by his feet. He leaned over and picked up the Bible lying crumpled there. He was about to close it when like a magnet the words grabbed his gaze:
“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations… being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised.”
His eyes opened. A new confidence welled in him. God, what you have said will happen must happen. I know it. Instantly a doubt arose. Sarah was gone. There would be no more opportunity for a pregnancy now.
No. God, it doesn’t matter. Somehow I know that you will do what You have promised.
Weeks passed and Sarah didn’t call. The waiting for God to answer was worse now than it had been over the last nine years, because it seemed now that if God didn’t act then it had all been an illusion. This was the last chance.
One morning, a month after she had left, Sarah’s voice came quivering over the phone. “David? It’s happened. There’s two lines this time…I don’t know how it’s possible but there are two lines. We’re going to have a baby. David…”
After hanging up the phone, he glanced over at his open Bible. A verse gleamed off the page, and as he read it, he felt that somehow God was smiling at him. “And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise...”
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Rom 4:18, 21 taken from the NIV Bible; Heb 6:15 taken from the NASB Bible
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It feels just a tad predictable, but I'm not sure how you could have got around that.
Good job with dialogue, and with the Scriptural tie-ins. Nice story!