Day 23 - Conclusion to the Waiting Season

In conclusion, waiting does have purpose.  It is hard and it is painful.  Sometimes there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and sometimes that light never comes.  However, God uses every season to bring us closer to Him and to teach us more about himself.  He develops our character into strong and trusting individuals, and He allows the experiences to grow us into better people.  When we are going through a waiting season, we can encourage and come alongside others who are in a similar place.  

As I have walked through my own waiting seasons, I have learned a lot about myself in the process, and who I am in Christ.  I have also learned a lot about who God is, and what He would have for me.  I have trusted Him more deeply as a result of all that I have gone through.  Waiting is hard, but it meaningful.  Do not lose heart.

Day 22 - My Waiting Season - Part 3

Another time that I found myself in a very hard waiting season was when I was in my last job.  During this time I endured hurtful and spiteful comments about my character that were untrue and completely subjective.  It went on for months, and I had to pray that God would give me the strength just to walk in the door each day.  It was during this time that I thought of the idea for this book, because I wanted to share with others what I had been learning.

I learned that God is enough.  No matter what my coworkers said about me, or how my managers decided to handle the situation, I knew that I was a child of the King. The words He spoke over me were true, that I was loved, redeemed, cherished and precious.  The rest of the words that I heard throughout the day lost their power in light of my identity in Christ.

I learned that His ways are best. I prayed that He would take me out of the situation and I thought of a hundred ways that He could do it.  In the end, it was a completely different scenario than I had ever envisioned, but it was better than I could have dreamed.

I learned that anything that brings me closer to Jesus is the best thing for me.  I wouldn't go back and change it because it caused me to trust in Him completely and to make Him Lord of my life over and over, day after day.  I had to keep giving it all to Him and trusting Him for His best.

Day 18 - My waiting season - Part 2

Another season of my life where I had the agonizing experience of waiting was when I was waiting to move home from North Carolina.  I had been living there for almost two years while my step-daughter was finishing high school, and we had plans to move to Maine once she graduated.  I was excited to move back to my home town and have my family grow up on the same streets that I did.  I missed my family and my friends and I was so ready to be close to them again.  It was so difficult to wait for the end of June to come.  It was all I thought about and it pretty much consumed me.  I was so focused on moving home that I never stopped to think about all I would be leaving behind.  There was a family that I nannied for while I was living there, and we had a play date one of the last few weeks I was in North Carolina.  I literally was five minutes away from leaving when I realized this would be the last time I would see them for a long time.  I couldn't believe I had been so focused on what was ahead of me, that I didn't stop to appreciate what was right in front of me.  I drove away with tears in my eyes as I left behind a family that had become like part of my own.

This experience taught me that while it is not wrong to dream or hope for the future, it shouldn't take over your life and overshadow where you are right now.  There is always something to be thankful for and appreciate.  Waiting for that sweet baby to arrive?  Enjoy these last few days with your husband as a family of two - you will never have those days again.  And while your child will bring you so much joy, it will change your life and nothing will ever be as simple as it once was.  Just think about the good things in your present life, and that will help you have a different perspective as you  trudge through the difficult waiting season.

Day 17 - My waiting Season - Part 1

I thought I would share my experiences with waiting as the second part of my "book".  My first memory of waiting was when I was in high school and all of my friends had boyfriends but I did not. I felt like something was wrong with me because of this, and I was very sad and lonely.  I wanted someone to sit with my at the lunch table, or call me every afternoon.  I did have some girlfriends that would do this often of course, but I wanted a boy to like me. Then, my junior year of high school, one of my crushes ( I'll admit, I had a few) asked me to be his girlfriend.  That lasted three weeks until he fooled around with my best friend.  Both relationships were over for me after that.

I remember feeling so discouraged and heartbroken after this.  I felt like my worth and my value was attached to if I had a boyfriend or not.  In youth group, the girls were given a poem and I don't remember the poem itself, but I remember that it was written as if from God's point of view and it said that He wanted to be our first love.  If we developed a relationship with Him first, the rest would all fall into place, and we would put other relationships in their proper place in our heart.  I tried to do this, but I think at that time I was still in the "I will do this, if you will do this" bargaining phase with God, and that of course is not how a relationship should go.

After high school came college - more crushes but no relationships.  I began to wonder if it would ever happen for me.  I started to really seek God out - and not my parent's God or my church's God, but who God was for me.  As I learned about Him in college, He became real to me and I started to develop a deeper relationship with Him.

However, it would take five years after college for me to really develop a relationship with God and I also found my husband during this time.  It was a hard and dark time, and I won't get into all the details here and now.  I learned that God needed to be first in my life and I learned that my worth and my value had nothing to do with if a boy liked me or if I was pretty or smart or funny.  My identity was found in Christ, He had redeemed me with the blood of his precious son, and I was already as valuable as I would ever be, because I was His daughter.  Once that became enough for me, I had some tough decisions to make in my life, and at the end of the tunnel - my husband and a daughter of my own.

Looking back, I wish I had not cared so much about if I had a boyfriend or not, and I really wish I didn't view my importance through the lens of a relationship with another person here on earth.  I wish that I had spent more time in his word and in prayer.  I am thankful that God fulfilled the desires of my heart, and I am thankful that He used my waiting season to bring me closer to Him, but it was a long and painful road.

Day 13- How God Uses Waiting - Part 4

In addition to using waiting to grow us in our relationship with Christ and to develop our character, God also uses waiting to give us the experiences to be able to help others that are going through the same thing.  As we go through our season of waiting we can come alongside others that are in similar situations and share each others burdens.  Sometimes going through a hard season doesn't feel as hard with the community of loving friends to help us through.  Even after we have come out the other side of our waiting season, we can still be an encouragement to others that are where we once were.  God designed us to be in community with each other and going through a similar experience as someone else helps us to develop a relationship built on common ground.  Sometimes when we go through something really difficult, and then turn around and helps someone else that is going through their own difficulty, it helps to give our difficult journey some meaning.  This can be reassuring to us, that it wasn't all for nothing.  God never wastes our pain.

Day 12- How God Uses Waiting - part 3

God uses the difficulty of waiting to teach us to to lean into Christ and experience intimacy with Him, as well as learn that we can depend on Him.  God also uses waiting to shape our character.  While we wait, we change.  We can allow waiting to make us grow bitter and angry, or we can change for the better.  We can continue to grow in our relationship with Christ and continue to trust in His plan.  Waiting is certainly a test of faith, and James says that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness which, when it has its full effect, will make us perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  (James 1: 3&4)  God uses waiting to refine us.  Job 23:10 says "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold." As we go through the difficulty of not knowing if and when we will ever get to the other side of waiting, we can develop strength of character and perseverance.

Day 6 - How God Uses Waiting - Part 2

Another way that God uses waiting is to teach us to become dependent on Him.  This is similar to intimacy, but it goes a step further, to not just know Him deeply, but to trust Him even more so.  It is a place where we let go of what we are holding on to, and instead lean into Him.  God wants us to be fully dependent on him, because that is when He is most glorified.  It is His accomplishments, His work, His efforts that cause us to reach our goals.  We can then see clearly how trusting in the Lord is the safest place for our dreams because He alone can make them come true.  Part of being dependent on God is trusting His plan for the outcome, and believing that God will give us what is best for us.  Another part is trusting that the time we are waiting is also for our good - it is a process by which we learn what we are made of, which is the third part of how God uses waiting.

Day 3 - How God Uses Waiting - Part 1

How God Uses Waiting - Part 1

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" Psalm 27:14

God has a plan for every part of your life, and He is in control of the big and the small.  When things aren't going according to our plan, to our timetable, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture.  It puts us at a crossroads where we can choose to walk away from truth and try to accomplish things on our own strength, or we can choose to trust.  

Abraham was told that he would be a father of nations, but he was unsure how this could be because Sarah was barren.  So Sarah and Abraham devised a plan that Abraham would father a child through one of Sarah's servants, Hagar.  However, this resulted in enmity between Sarah and Hagar, and Hagar and her child lost and dying in a desert.  This was not the plan that God had in mind, and this was not the child that God was going to establish His covenant with.  If Abraham and Sarah had not taken matters into their own hands, and instead waited upon the Lord, things would have turned out a lot differently.

Waiting has purpose.  If we choose to trust Him, we will experience so much joy, even in the hard waiting season.  We will experience intimacy with Christ that can only be experienced through true surrender.  This means that we let go of what we are waiting for, longing for, and instead place it in His capable hands.  By saying to God " I choose you over my hopes and dreams" we enter into a place of closeness and even freedom.  We don't have to control the outcome.  We don't have to make sure all the pieces fit or the stars align.  All we have to do is trust that the Creator of the universe has a plan for our life, and walk the road that He has shown us.  And as we walk, He walks with us.  We don't have to go through our waiting season alone.  He is right there beside us.  We can experience the joy of knowing Christ intimately and see how He blesses us even when life is so hard.  He does want to bless us.  He wants us to know the joy that comes through trusting in Him alone, and He wants us to experience the freedom that comes from surrender and intimacy with Him.  Sometimes the answer to our prayer doesn't look like what we had hoped for or expected it, but it is so much better when it is from the Lord and not our own striving.

"And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail." Isaiah 58:11

Day 2 - Introduction to The Waiting Season

Over the next thirty days, I am going to blog every day - a little bit of everything, but one of the things that I really want to do is finish my book.  I am not sure how great it will come out, but I will feel a lot better having finished it.  

-the waiting season-

::encouragement and hope for when time seems to stand still::

Introduction.


"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven..." Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
There is a time for every matter under heaven, but what about when it feels like that time will never come?  When it feels like the season we are in will last forever and we are stuck in a holding pattern, unsure of the next move?  Is there even anywhere to go from here?  What do we do when all we can do is wait?

Waiting is hard.  It oftentimes feels so passive, and it is beyond our control.  It feels like there is nothing for us to do but wait for the clock to turn, the letter to come, the phone to ring, the day to finally arrive.  In the meantime, we ask ourselves what is the purpose in this?  What is the point of waiting?   Why can't I have that house/car/baby that I have been dreaming of for so long?  Why is God allowing me to unemployed for this amount of time?  Why do I have to just sit and watch and wait, while others seem to "have it all"?

People (myself included) often think that when they get that house, have that baby, start the new job, own their own successful business - THAT is when their lives will begin.  However, it is during the waiting - the in-between - where life happens.  This is where growth takes place and this is what God uses to make us who we are meant to be.  The waiting season looks different for everyone, and I hope this book helps us to explore how God uses waiting to grow us in our relationship with Him and how it helps us become more like Christ.

I wrote this book for me as much as I did for you.  The idea was born in a hard season of waiting in my personal life.  As I write this, I am still in that place and trying to keep my eyes on Jesus rather than my circumstances.  This is no easy task, but perhaps if we dig a little deeper, we can find that God has great purpose for our waiting seasons.  I want this book to be a source of encouragement and hope when you are questioning God's plan for your life.  I hope that this book is a tool to point you back to who Jesus is and what He has already done for us to remind you that He can be trusted with your life.