Wait...What???

 

 Have you ever thought of how strange it is that you can have a conversation without really saying anything?

"Wait...what?"
"I know, right?"
"Dude!"
"Mmmm-Hm."
"For REAL."

You could be talking about anything from a movie to a sale at your favorite department store to the second coming of Christ.  That really has nothing to do with the meat of this post, but I've been thinking about it, and after the title of this blog post.... Anyway. I digress...

I was talking to my mother in law the other day, and we were talking about God answering prayer. Obviously there's yes or no, but... there is also my least favorite answer to prayer; it isn't no.  It's wait.

Wait.  I STINK at waiting.  I'm a doer.  A fixer. A pull the trigger, fish or cut bait, Type A, get it done kind of girl.  So when God says, "Wait,"  I'm like, WHAT?  Might as well tell me stop requiring oxygen!

My least two favorite words in the Bible? "Be still."  For those of you who knew me before Myasthenia Gravis entered my life, had you ever seen me be still? Maybe in my sleep.  Maybe.  

I'm in a season of waiting. As most of you know, we had been planning on moving to North Carolina. In 2022, I had the worst year of my life. Every. Single. Month. Something tragic happened. I was so looking forward to starting 2023! I had high hopes of better times. I made it 20 days into January. Then I broke my foot. And got sick. I cannot catch a break. 

So I've been asking God to show me what He's trying to tell me, and guess what I'm getting?

Wait.

Be still.

Sigh. Okay, God, I got the message.  I don't like it, and I don't know how to do it, but I finally understand.  It's so much easier to encourage OTHERS to be still and wait for the Lord... To remind them that God is always in control, and that He definitely knows better than I do. 

So as I try to quiet the beast inside me begging for action, I humbly ask for your prayers.  It's a swift learning curve, but the sooner I figure it out, the better off I will be (and probably those around me who have had to put up with my irritable self!). 

I'm so grateful I have a Father in Heaven who wants the very best for me that He will do whatever it takes to ensure I get it.  Myasthenia Gravis came into my life at a time when my life was on the verge of going down a very wrong path.  I had to quit a job I loved, was really good at, and made amazing money doing.  But moral issues were popping up that I was incredibly uncomfortable with...and then I literally became so sick I could NOT work any longer.  That was the best thing that ever happened to me, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. 

God will do anything to get you on the right path, whether you like it or not. It's like a parent with a teenager that is starting to go down the wrong path. You would do *anything* to get your child back on the right path, and it may require doing things that aren't pleasant. However, you are doing it because you LOVE them and want the BEST for their lives. That's God, with us.

All this happening now isn't pleasant either, but I know that when I come out the other side (notice I said WHEN not IF!), I will be a better person for it.  Life is full of mountain tops and valleys.  The view from the top is breathtaking.  And I've been blessed with some incredible mountaintop experiences.  But where does the growth take place?  In the valleys, my friends.  We cannot grow on the mountaintop.  We must experience the valleys.  So as I go through this valley, I am trying my very best to lean into My Father, and to be still, and to KNOW, the HE is God.

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14 NIV

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV