![]() ![]() Burial in Bible times was usually done without embalming, and it often occurred the same day as the death. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, was sick and likely died before the message about his illness ever reached Jesus. We never discussed it or made any preparation for it.” One wife sadly said, following her husband’s death, “You would have thought that we never expected to die. If they have not occurred yet, they will in the future. And barring the soon return of Christ, sickness and death will eventually come to every home. In the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John, we learn that sickness and death had come to the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus at Bethany. The Pharisees Plotted to Kill Jesus (John 11:45-57) Lazarus Brought Out of the Grave (John 11:38-44) The Conversation with Martha and Mary (John 11:17-37) The Illness and Death of Lazarus (John 11:1-16) We feel the prayers and are forever grateful for them. Thank you for those of you who have prayed and continue to pray for us. I am thankful for my perspective that the Lord has given me and pray for continued peace during this journey. I still have my moments of hurt and I think these moments will come throughout this waiting time but I am thankful that I am not sitting in this fog of sadness that consumed me last month. Last month was a hard one for me, but I’ve come out on the other side of it with a perspective and a peace that could only come from the Lord. I still cry out to the Lord and pour my heart to Him for this child I so long for but I pray at the same time that my story bring Him the most glory possible and that I submit to Him in this journey. That doesn’t mean I have stopped praying for a baby. If that means we never have another baby because God wants to use me to bring people to know Him, then I pray that prayer. If that means we are to adopt because the story could only be orchestrated by the Lord, then I pray that prayer. If that means we are to wait another 5 years for a baby because our conception was nothing short of a miracle, then I pray that prayer. I pray and genuinely mean it when I say I want whatever happens in our story to bring the Lord the MOST GLORY. My life as a Christian and believer in Jesus Christ is to bring the most glory to Him through my life. So how does my story of infertility relate to the story of Lazarus? It’s taken me a while to get to this point, nearly the 2.5 years we have been walking this journey but I look at how Jesus WAITED to go to Lazarus and even let him die in order to bring the most glory to Himself. I knew in that moment of reading the story of Lazarus and Jesus that the Lord was laying it on my heart to share my story at BSF Sharing Day. This was a Sharing Day for the members to go and share their stories of growth and learning from the study. This same morning I read this story to Levi, I was going to go to the last BSF study of the year. He chose to stay in order to bring people to Him and bring the most glory to Himself. ![]() ![]() Jesus could have gone immediately to Lazarus and healed him if He wanted, but He chose to stay away. One of the things that really stuck out to me was what Jesus said in verse 4. As I read this story, I remembered reading this story in my BSF study. This past year I did a Bible study through BSF International and our study was the book of John all year long. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”Ĥ When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. John 11: 1-7: Now a man named Lazarus was sick. But what a lot of people don’t remember or might forget is that Jesus was sent a message a few days before Lazarus’ death that he was ill and Jesus decided to stay two days where He was and not go to Lazarus immediately. This is the verse in the Bible where “Jesus wept” when he heard of Lazarus’ death. Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary, were good friends with Jesus and Jesus was deeply saddened by Lazarus’ death. If you know (or don’t know) the story of Lazarus, he died and Jesus raised him from the dead. We don’t always get far into the New Testament with the stories we read, but this particular day we started reading the story of Lazarus. We do this every morning and he has his favorite stories that we tend to read on a regular basis: David and Goliath, Joshua and the Wall (Battle of Jericho), and Baby Jesus. Last week, I was reading with Levi from his children’s Bible.
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