Some of the most spiritually productive people I know are convinced they are barren. They feel unproductive, stuck, like they know exactly what they are supposed to be birthing and it simply will not come forth. If that is you, I want to walk you through the story of Hannah, because I believe it holds a lesson that will reframe your entire season as you navigate these life transitions.
The Scripture makes a striking statement about Hannah. It says the Lord had closed her womb. Not the enemy. Not bad luck. The Lord. That detail matters, because we are quick to assume that every closed door is an attack. But sometimes the delay is divine. Sometimes the womb stays closed until the right season arrives, because what God intends to bring through you requires a specific moment to be born into.
Here is the turn that changes the whole story. Hannah wanted a son. God wanted a prophet. She went into the temple asking for an heir, a child to end her shame and satisfy her longing. But God was after something larger. Before Hannah could carry what God wanted, she had to walk into His presence, get her mind straight, and agree to carry His assignment instead of only her request. She came in wanting a son. She left willing to carry a Samuel.
That is the invitation on the table for many of you. You are not actually barren. You are pregnant, but not with what you planned. You are carrying something supernatural, something beyond your understanding, something you did not prepare for and did not ask for. And the reason it feels like nothing is happening is that you keep waiting for the thing you originally wanted, while God is developing the thing He actually designed. This requires learning how to pray with vision for what is actually there, not just what you expected to see.
The tension is real. It is disorienting to carry an assignment that does not match your request. You had a picture of what your life and your fruitfulness would look like, and what is growing in you does not fit the picture. So you resent it, or you ignore it, or you keep praying for the old dream while the new one develops unnoticed. But what if the thing God placed in you is bigger than the thing you wanted? What if He closed one kind of productivity so you would finally carry the one you were made for?
You do not have to fully understand your assignment to carry it. Hannah did not understand everything about Samuel and the era he would usher in. She simply agreed to lay her own plan on the shelf and birth what God wanted. That is the whole move. You take the picture you had, you set it down before God, and you say, whatever You want me to carry, I will carry, even if it is not what I came in asking for.
There is grief in that surrender, and I will not pretend otherwise. Laying down your version of the dream is a real loss. But it is the kind of loss that makes room for something you would never have chosen and could never have manufactured. Hannah's willingness to carry a prophet instead of merely a son shaped a nation. Your willingness to carry God's assignment instead of merely your preference may shape more than you can currently imagine.
So take this into prayer. Ask God plainly what you have been straining to birth that He never asked you to carry, and what He has placed in you that you have been too afraid or too disappointed to receive. It is time to realize that he that looks within awakens to the deposit God has already placed there. Then, like Hannah, give Him your yes. You are not barren. You are being trusted with something beyond your understanding. Carry it anyway.
Dr. Connie Williams is the founder of Connie Williams Ministries, Inc., a prophetic teaching and coaching ministry of over 35 years. Join the prophetic community at https://community.drconniewilliams.org
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