Mike & Julie Yoder

Today, I am blessed to share the story of my daughter Julie and her husband Mike. Stories of healing always encourage me and help build my faith. May this be the same for you.

Julie and her husband Mike had thoroughly enjoyed their first few years of married life without children. In addition to travel, friends, dining out, and a new home purchase, Julie was a busy reading teacher at the local middle school. Mike was pursuing a challenging career in the biotech field. They, like most young couples, were confident they could start a family when they wanted.

“Getting pregnant is easy—right? Let’s wait until we are ready.”

That was their thinking, and maybe some of you can identify with it. So many young couples are waiting to start their families. Demanding careers and mountainous college debt are obvious and sensible reasons to delay. Exciting, accessible travel, and the ease of birth control contribute to the enjoyment of an extended childless marriage. Many couples want to purchase their first home and get settled before having children. Most think getting pregnant will be easy and they will abandon contraception when they are ready.

Well into Mike and Julie’s deliberate attempts to conceive, Julie knew something was not right. She was not pregnant after almost a year of unprotected sex. And now, her menstrual cycle seemed to have come to a crashing halt. Frantic searches on the plethora of infertility websites only served to throw her into a more desperate emotional state.

Something was wrong. This was not easy!

She came to me, her mother, to ask for prayer. She was not sure how to ask God, how to pray. She needed a cure for her possible infertility, and of course knew my experience and my confidence in God. As I held my distraught daughter, how I wished I had a formula to quickly correct her problem and pronounce her cured. But I knew I didn’t have any such formula. Faith and friendship is God’s way, not formulas. I did have that strong belief in God’s desire to give her a child (my grandchild, no less!), and I knew He would show her and Mike how to ask, believe, and cooperate with Him. But there was no quick and easy formula.

Receiving God’s cure for infertility is simple, but not necessarily easy.

After the year of no conception, a trip to the doctor confirmed her worst fears. She had PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. This explained her lack of menstrual periods and no ovulation.

Mike and Julie faced their crisis of infertility by immediately asking God for His cure and His gift of a child. They sensed God was instructing them to rely on Him as He directed their choices. Medically, they opted for Julie to take Metformin to correct her insulin levels and treat the PCOS. This was the easy part. Of course, Julie expected quick results. She began taking the drug and started calculating the best month to give birth.

They, like many other couples, had figured the perfect timing for conception and birth. Julie was a teacher in the public schools and just knew the end of May would be great for giving birth. She would have the whole Midwest summer to enjoy with her newborn. When August, September, October, and November passed without the pregnancy test reading positive, she was devastated. She thought she had “heard from God.” This is a common mistake for couples whose personal pain clouds their ability to hear the voice of God. Our own deep desires drown Him out. This is why we need others praying, counseling, and helping us keep our hearts and minds clear to hear God. They received powerful team prayer several times and exposed some hindrances where Satan was lying about God’s timing. He had convinced Julie it would be long, like Sarah in the Bible, who waited 25 years. She saw this was not true and turned from this lie and her despair.

We continued to ask God to speak while thanking Him for His cure and the gift of a child.

One day while I was reading again the story of Sarah in the Bible, God showed me a phrase the angel spoke about Sarah and I knew it was for Julie. I told her I believed God was saying “at this time next year” (November 2008) she would be holding a baby—the same words the angel had spoken about Sarah. I emphasized that nothing is too hard for the Lord and He was speaking to her, giving her the chance to trust Him and His timing. She knew in her heart that this was God speaking, too. She and Mike rested in faith.

Sure enough, by mid-December, Julie called me one morning at 5:20 a.m. In a deep sleep, I heard the startling ring of the phone pierce the silence. I jumped to answer with my heart pounding.

“Mom,” she said excitedly, “I think the test says I’m pregnant!”

Immediately I was awake, joy flooding my soul! Indeed she was. Three more pregnancy tests—later that day—confirmed the miraculous truth. After 15 months of trying, she was pregnant. Ty Michael Yoder was born August 28, 2008, and Julie was definitely holding him in her arms in November 2008—a year from the time God had shown us she would be cradling a newborn. Julie has since had three more beautiful children. Tate Christopher took a little time to conceive in 2010, but Julie is completely healed of PCOS. Magdalena Marie, conceived in 2013, was a surprise and a reminder of God’s amazing, miraculous love. Molly Mae joined the family in August 2019 and has been a wonderful caboose.