It was the fall of 2001, my junior year of college, and I was in the billiards room of a Christian fraternity house, playing with my best friend’s two-year-old son when a girlfriend paid me the best compliment I could have asked for.   Why does God close some wombs?

“You’re going to be such a good mom,” she told me and I still remember my outfit (as usually happens to me for the memories that stick the closest). For this one, it was bowling-style shoes on my feet (so trendy), jeans (cuffed, of course), and a black turtleneck sweater. As a 21-year-old, I dreamed of getting married and having children. I never anticipated that years of waiting and hoping and endless trying would be our journey to that.

Year after year, as friends have their second, third, and twelfth child, the small voice nags in my brain: Why? Why does God close some wombs and open others? Why us? Why this long?

Interestingly, two words are not found in my Bible’s concordance: why and providence.  So I had to do my own digging to find the Spirit-inspired words that would soothe my questions and stoke my faith.

I read about Sarai in Genesis 16, Rachel in Genesis 30, Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, and I began noticing a consistent theme.  Why does God close some wombs?

“The Lord has restrained me from bearing children,” Sarai said in Genesis 16:2. Why does God close some wombs?

“Give me children, or else I die!” Rachel cried desperately to her husband in Genesis 30:1. And, in verse two, he shot back angrily. “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

And then there’s 1 Samuel 1:5, where it says that Elkanah loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb. Why does God close some wombs?

I began reading my favorite commentaries, desperate for some profound truth that would provide an ounce of encouragement, and was quickly disappointed. The first handful I picked up didn’t really get into the fact that these women could not conceive.

Of course, early on in our story, I knew I would struggle with the wait on a much deeper level emotionally than my husband would. It’s just how God created women—with a need to procreate. He built us to be mothers, and when the pregnancies didn’t happen as quickly or as easily as they should, I fought it much more emotionally than Josh did. It’s just not something men fully understand (so, of course, the male-authored commentaries on the topic fell flat for me.)

I don’t fault them for it. And I know that my husband is much less emotional than other men—it’s something that I’m actually incredibly thankful for.

I love that he’s about as black and white as a person can get. I love that he believes, still, after all these years, that God will do His miracle. His faith balances mine. To be sure, in the heat of an emotional moment, I usually don’t love it. In fact, I get downright angry about it. But his stability helps me to bounce back faster, dry my tears, and pull myself up by my bootstraps.

If he wasn’t like that, I would be a puddle on the floor.  Why does God close some wombs?

So, I read commentaries. And I was disappointed in what I found—sometimes even offended until I realized that my offense was actually conviction. One commentator described Rachel’s emotional and dramatic outburst in Genesis 30 as “a most reprehensible speech that argues not only envy and jealousy but also a total want of dependence on God.” At the time, I thought the words were unnecessarily harsh as their truth stung my desperation. But sometimes harsh words are the only thing that can snap me out of a funk.  Why does God close some wombs?

Sure, for Rachel’s part, “Give me children lest I die” is fairly dramatic. To her credit, she watched her sister conceive four times (with Rachel’s husband, I might add) before she exploded. I feel her pain. I understand that feeling of swinging so vastly and so quickly from waiting and trusting God’s promise to desperately finding ways to make it happen myself. Spending $15,000 on one round of in vitro fertilization (with only a 30% success rate) sounded so exorbitantly expensive in the beginning. Suddenly, seven years in, it doesn’t sound so bad.  Why does God close some wombs?

As I read these raw stories of women at their emotional breaking points, I wondered: Why is it that God opens the womb of one woman (Genesis 29:31) and closes the womb of another (Genesis 30:2)? Why does God close wombs? 

The only answer I could come up with? Providence.  Why does God close some wombs?

Why Does God Close Some Wombs?

If you look back at the text and assume that Leah had her children back to back, we can estimate that Rachel was about four years into her infertility. And while I (probably) wouldn’t take it to the dramatic extreme she did, I feel her pain. In the same breath, I haven’t had to watch my sister also be married to my husband and have baby after baby after baby after baby.  Why does God close some wombs?

Finally, after Rachel’s husband became a father eleven times over with her sister, her maid, and her sister’s maid … finally, God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb (Genesis 30:22).

Strangely enough, it appears as if this was the first time Rachel actually prayed for this. As Adam Clarke points out, “Her prayer and faith obtained what her impatience and unbelief prevented.” Based on his observation, I realized that Rachel envied her sister (and two other women) for years before she finally trusted God with her pain. God, help my faith overcome by impatience and unbelief.  Why does God close some wombs?

In Rachel’s day, barrenness was a reproach. Today, I still feel it. I feel the silence and uncomfortableness of being the woman who can’t get pregnant. I feel the separation from a group. I feel the awkardness of sitting with women as they chatter on with stories of their kids, and only able to throw in the occasional “Josh did that one time” joke. But it’s God’s providence that has me here. Right here, in this place, for eighty-nine months now. I don’t want to be envious or jealous. I don’t want to wallow in sorrow, self-pity and unbelief. I want to come out on top, my faith in tact. 

I turned to 1 Samuel 1.  I read one commentary, then a second, and a third. I still had not encountered one word about the fact that God closed Hannah’s womb. The lack of attention that the writers gave to something that has brought me to tears more times than I can count astounds me.

But the Spirit of God allowed me to connect with these women across time and history and, through His promptings, I learn that it’s okay to talk about it. It’s okay to be emotional.

It’s okay to know the exact number of months I’ve waited when everyone around me says, “Don’t think like that. When you stop paying attention you’ll get pregnant.”  Why does God close some wombs?

Hannah was in bitterness of soul, praying to the Lord and weeping bitterly, and the cross-reference to that verse? It’s Job 7:11. Job, a man that knows suffering, says, “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” And I’ll do it to God, just like Hannah did. I’ll pour it all out to Him, because He is the only One who gets it. And He has the incredible ability to lay the tree in the bitter waters of my grieving, waiting heart and make them sweet (Exodus 15:22-26).

God thank You that above all, You are fully in control.  You hear every prayer I pray and see every tear I cry.  Help me trust Your providence.  Why does God close some wombs?