“So the way you pray is how Hannah prayed,” Perry said, “where she says, ‘O Lord of Hosts, look upon the affliction of your servant.’”
Perry noted that Hannah identified the Lord as the “warrior God who is sovereign” over all things and herself as his servant. In other words, Hannah recognized that God is able to do anything, but she also committed to submitting to God in all things, “even if that means pain, even if that means suffering.”
“If you never give me a child from my womb, give me children in the church,” Perry said, “because motherhood is not just a fertility that you have.”
Moore chimed in amid applause for Perry’s words, saying, “I could not agree with that more.”
“It is to your Father’s glory that you bear much fruit,” Moore said. “God wants your life to be fruit-bearing—immensely fruit-bearing—whether it is through physical children…or whether it is through those who you raise up in the faith.”
Moore went on to say that when Christians apply God’s command to Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” to a New Testament context, “it means be fruitful and multiply in the way of the Great Commission.”
“I’m a big believer that in that fruitfulness we find a lot of satisfaction,” Moore said.
Moore added, “I also think [God] delights in giving babies. So I’m just gonna tell you today that I also would pray that he would give you a baby—that you would conceive or that you would be able to adopt.”
Moore also went on to express her conviction that Christians without children or spouses should not be treated as second-class citizens in the church.
“A strange thing has happened in the American church…is that the nuclear family got very lifted up as that which is just basically worshiped in the church and that the sign of blessing from God is that you’re married and have a family,” she said. “But, actually, Jesus said, ‘These are my brothers and sisters, my mother and father—those that do the will of God.’”
“I just simply want to say to you: It is a sacred thing to be single,” Moore went on to say, “and to get to go anywhere where Jesus tells you to go and do anything he tells you to do.”
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“I don’t know how all this got turned around where being single was something you’re apologizing for in the church and somehow there’s not a place for you, because singleness was highly regarded in the New Testament,” Moore said. “Just ask Paul about it.”
