My husband Shann wrote the libretto for an opera about the life of Zechariah and Elizabeth highlighting the human suffering of barrenness. It is easy to romanticize scripture by labeling difficult emotions such as sorrow, fear, and doubt as “ungodly.”  We march over the passages without attending to the humanity behind the stories. Barrenness in Israel was deeply rooted in a belief God had withheld favor. A barren woman was looked at with dishonor and as unrighteous, someone whom God has abandoned.

Hebrew culture placed a duty on women to bear children. Children are a blessing from the Lord. In Shann’s opera, Elizabeth shares her inner suffering, questioning why God has withheld the blessing of a child, the honor of motherhood. She shares her anguish with God and her suffering that accompanies public shame as well as the suffering of silence from God regarding our deepest longings and most heartfelt prayers. 

I recognize Elizabeth’s suffering as she sings. I have walked through that suffering and watched beloved others walk through the barren landscape of unanswered prayers. For Dad, cancer was this barrenness, struggling to understand the why of this disease. There is a fear that cancer is a punishment, a curse. Does the terminal nature of cancer lead to a sentence of life without hope?

I know that Dad began to see his cancer not as a curse but as a refining fire, a blessing in disguise, forcing him to strip away all vestige of control, power, and self-reliance. He had to learn trust in the fruitful abundance of God to bring hope out of gloom, to bring life out of death.

One of Shann’s lyrics that rings in my mind is “God’s love is everlasting.”  My dad had to wrestle through the death of his “hoped-for” life into trusting in a new resurrected life. True life in a dying body, true hope in a hopeless prognosis, true joy in despair. This is an answered prayer…God’s love is everlasting.