My Long Walk to Motherhood: And Some Lessons Learnt Along the Way

By Yinka Adebiyi

Exodus 23:26, a bible verse I held on to after being married for eleven years and yet had no children. After much tears and self-pity, I finally got something right. You are in for a great experience as you go on this long walk to motherhood with me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512747263

Yinka Adebiyi

Yinka is a gifted prophetic teacher of God’s word and has been in ministry for over two and the half decades. She serves as co-pastor of New Wine Assembly Church in Chicago, IL. Her experience of eleven years of barrenness helps her to bring unusual comfort to those who hurt due to something missing in their lives. Yinka has a Master’s degree from University of Lagos in Nigeria and currently is the Director of operations at Sunad Homecare, Inc., in Chicago, a successful company she co-founded with her husband, Sunday ‘Yinka Adebiyi. They are blessed with two lovely girls Damilola (Mojoyin) and Mojola.

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Copyright © 2016 Yinka Adebiyi.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-4727-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4728-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4726-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016910344

WestBow Press rev. date: 9/2/2016

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 In the Beginning

Chapter 2 Growing Up

Chapter 3 Lessons I Learned from the Bible

Chapter 4 Jesus Found Me

Chapter 5 The Lady I Grew to Become

Chapter 6 The Long Journey Begins

Chapter 7 Off to the United States of America

Chapter 8 Things Got Really Bad

Chapter 9 While the Pain Lasted

Postscript

Testimonies

Preface

During a conference I was attending in June 2003, I looked at my three-month-old, beautiful baby and wondered to myself, How did she come? The reply came straight from my spirit: she came by faith and mercy. I had looked forward to carrying a child of my own for eleven years, and finally she was here. I felt like sharing my testimony with everybody at the conference. Even though it had nothing to do with the workshop I was attending, I still shared it. It occurred to me that someone might need to hear my testimony to believe God for his or her own miracle. After telling it, I saw how the people were blessed, and I knew I needed to write about it. This is what gave birth to this book.

My Long Walk to Motherhood is about the lessons I learned while waiting for my own children and of the faithfulness of God even when all hope was lost. The principles in this book will work in any situation needing a miracle. I have used them in other areas of my life. One of the main reasons people don’t get their miracles could be because they are focusing on the situation. They are constantly looking at what is seen while the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 that we should stop looking at the things that are seen but focus on what we desire—the change we want. In this book you will read how I did this and about how you could do it too.

Abraham and Sarah hoped against all hope. The couple’s situation was completely hopeless. As the Bible puts it, Abraham did not consider his body or Sarah’s body; rather he considered the faithfulness of God. I have good news for you: it is very possible for you to have your children or any other miracle you desire because God wants our joy to be full. Weeping may last through the night, but joy will definitely come in the morning (Psalm 30:5). The situation you are faced with right now is temporary and is subject to change.

I pray that as you read my testimony and the things I learned along the way that you will get up and step out in faith to receive your miracle.

Mojoyin

This is the story my grandma will begin to tell. It is my story—and it is really a sweet story. It began a long, long time ago in the ’60s, I’m told, when my mom was born in the big city of Lagos, Nigeria.

Grandma—Yinka’s Mom

Mojoyin deserves the fitting name her father gave her, which literally translates from the Yoruba language as, I ate honey. She looks every bit destined to join the league of rare people in Bible times, including Isaac, Joseph, Samuel, and John the Baptist. Their birth, like Mojoyin’s, came after a long, long wait. The story of Mojoyin’s birth inspires. Her mother is my fifth child, my fifth daughter.

Yinka

I set out to write this book to tell a wonderful story—the story of my first daughter being born in the twelfth year of my long wait for a child. The delay, while it lasted, left me emotionally flustered. If I had seen this delay coming, I definitely would have prepared for it. But I didn’t know until my long walk to motherhood was a long way down the road. It never occurred to me that I would become a mother in such a dramatic way.

Sunday

Though our façade as men usually pretends to be stoic and resolute in faith in the face of difficult situations in life, the story of how my first child was finally born still baffles me as I recall the many nights and days, which turned into weeks, months, and then years of our many missteps, fears, and then fright while we waited to see the story end happily. Thank God it eventually did, and we arrived very humbled, somewhat bemused, but stronger too.

Chapter 1

In the Beginning

By Grandma

Yinka announced her entrance into the world with a momentous tropical rain. It was Easter Sunday on the evening of April 10, 1966. From about six o’clock that evening, she declared her readiness to storm the earth with unusual kicks at my lower abdomen. My EDD (estimated