Chapter 8: Waiting
Since coming back to Christ, my view of who God is has seemed to swing back and forth each time I went through another difficult season. This season, I was waiting for God’s answer: will my baby and I make it through this? I wanted desperately not to define the Lord through the lens of my circumstances. But, in the season of waiting for answers about our pregnancy, I was struggling with the why behind it all. Then I recalled a sermon by Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell, he taught on trials and hardship. He said, “God allows storms for two reasons: storms for correcting, and storms for perfecting.” These trials I had been experiencing over the past several years felt like a combination of both.
The Lord was correcting everything I previously believed. I had been taking my cues from the world and not Him. He was also perfecting me, sanctifying my renewed mind with each hardship. Pastor Philip gave a few points to remember if you’re going through something that God allows: if you’re in His will and being obedient, and God led you to the storm, He will grow you if you live well and suffer well. Suffering well transforms your character, your faith, your confidence, and your trust. The Lord will come to you, you will feel his presence and comfort, and He’ll see you through, just remain obedient to the will of God.
I was being obedient, responsive to the Lord’s correction, open to the idea of sanctification, but why did it all have to come at such a steep cost?
Waiting. I shared earlier in this series that my mom’s favorite phrase to say towards the end of her life was, “I’m waiting on the Lord,” and these have grown to be words I carry with me each day, etched on my heart. I’ve always been impatient, rushing to see the result, an outcome, an achievement. Our world seems to cater to those with anxious minds who need to see the ending at the start. Everything man creates and plans for revolves around efficiency, to take waiting out of the equation. But with God, His plans are for sanctification, a slow-growing process of creating a clean heart. And with this, I couldn’t rush to the end. With surrender came faithfully waiting on the Lord to bring me and our baby safely to the other side. Not only that, but I had to abide in the Lord so that patience could take root in my heart and mind.
I made the decision I was no longer going to be a scared disciple on a boat in the middle of the storm. I needed to be more like Jesus, resting peacefully in the will of God, trusting in Him to see us through all of this.
A few months after my mom passed away, I had a vivid dream of being in my garden surrounded by watermelon vines. Everywhere I turned there was an abundance of watermelon growing. Walking through the garden I saw the vines sprawled about, spilling over the raised garden bed, and filling in the walkways. I woke up with a strange feeling that this dream was too real to be dismissed as my subconscious or an active imagination. I knew that I was planning to plant a few watermelon seeds, and it being my first year gardening, I certainly wasn’t expecting that vision of overflow. That season I picked two to three watermelon, it wasn’t much, certainly nothing like the dream I had, but I was content with my success.
When I couldn’t garden due to our pregnancy complications I didn’t know what to expect from our garden. With each passing week it started to come alive. Each time my husband would go out to his office he’d pass by the garden taking pictures. The watermelon I planted the year before had begun to grow. By the end of the summer the watermelon patch from my vivid dream was a reality. Everywhere I turned there was watermelon. God gave me a vision of something that wouldn’t come to pass for another year…
I didn’t know that I was waiting for it, but through all of it, God was preparing my heart to trust Him.
“But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” Isaiah 40:31. A dream fulfilled, that became my picture of hope to get me through the rest of our pregnancy with all the faith that everything would work out fine. If He would plant a dream for encouragement a year before it was actually needed, I knew that He would answer my prayers to bring our baby girl here safely. With this simple act, God revealed His sovereignty, His power, His kindness, His gentleness, and His love. It was everything I needed to keep me going. I felt seen by God, heard by God, loved by God. This was no longer love that I only read about, but love I experienced firsthand myself, like when He passed by Elijah in the whispering wind.
“The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him,” I’ve always heard that even in the middle of what you’re going through you have to praise the Lord. I was beginning to understand that’s how you wait well, how you suffer well. I had already started the practice of intentionally giving thanks to the Lord for each blessing, and choosing to focus on whatever was praiseworthy. And the Lord was taking me further, rebuilding and renewing my mind, removing all false pretenses about who He was and who He was calling me to be. The more I sought Him in prayer, the more He revealed. Just like the vision of the field of watermelon, He was slowly showing me parts of Himself I read about but didn’t know personally. I knew God as Judge, but not God as Father. He was pouring into me the unconditional love, kindness, compassion, gentleness of a Father.
We often can rush through whatever God is trying to reveal to us in the storms and seasons we’re in, when we’re waiting on unanswered prayers. But things were beginning to come together for me, this season filled with heartbreak, with glimpses of joy before the next trial came, God was meeting me in each moment. Slowly revealing moment by moment the truth of who He is, and who He’s called me to be. Despite our circumstances, He’s still a miracle worker, a promise keeper, a light in the darkness, my strength. He didn’t have to give me the dream about watermelon but He did. He gave it to me so that I could feel comforted in His sovereignty, that His plans are never to harm me, only to prosper me. The storms are for correcting and perfecting, it’s up to us to wait through them well.
God was stretching me in this season, perfecting my faith. And slowly, it was becoming stronger than ever before. Join me next week as I explore how that faith got me through a challenging delivery.
