Places of Deep Longing

Believe it or not, you are now one month into this journey. Some of you have emailed me and said you're anxious to get to the meeting...and believe me. SO WAS I! You'll have to be patient just like I had to be!

I've been trying to figure out how to piece together this next part for you, and I'm still not sure how I'm going to do it in the most effective way, but let me just start by saying at this point in our relationship, I loved the texts he sent me. It was not at all unusual to get a dozen or more random texts each day that said things like, I'm thinking of you or Miss you or Have I told you that you're beautiful? I had never before been showered with that kind of attention and affection and I drank it up. I delighted in a lit-up screen that said Text from Isaac because I never knew what it would say, but I always knew I'd love it.

It was because of such a string of texts that I wrote this in my journal: Seriously, God!?!? Why is he so wonderful? He said he can be himself with me. That I give him hope and he trusts me. What an honor! Oh Jesus, please help me be worthy of it. Help me to pray fervently, Jesus. He needs me, and I ache to support him.

The request to be taught fervent prayer was not lost to the Lord's ears.

That Sunday morning, my heart was so burdened for him. I knew he was facing a difficult day personally, and I ached to be able to spend time in prayer for him. As God would have it (and what came to be the first of many such “coincidental” moments, though I didn’t recognize it for what it was at the time) my own church had an amazing service. It was all about prayer and we spent much of the service not listening to the preacher preach, but rather actually in prayer. On the very morning when I wanted to be able to be in a deep posture of prayer for my sweet boy, God opened the door for me to have an entire service devoted solely to that. I was able to concentrate on lifting Isaac in the moment of his greatest need. That's God.

That afternoon, I received a surprise. By this point, as I think I already told you, Isaac and I had determined to meet in person and our first date was over two weeks away. We were going to be meeting at his brother's house, because it was a good halfway point between our two homes. Problem was...I'd never met his brother or his brother's wife. I was a little nervous about not only meeting Isaac, but meeting him at the same time I met this part of his family.

But God was one step ahead of me (again). I received a phone call from the mother of my friend who set us up. She asked if I was busy that evening...and if I wasn't...she wondered if I'd be interested in coming with her to meet the brother and sister-in-law so I could feel more relaxed later when Isaac and I officially met. Well, I already had plans for the early part of the evening, but she said it would be no problem for me to meet up at their house after I was done with my previously scheduled plans.

I thought about throwing up. I'd never met the family before meeting the man! So I donned my best "don't-I-look-like-someone-you'd-want-your-brother-to-date" outfit and headed out for the big adventure.

I made my way down unfamiliar roads toward the brother's house. I need to stop the story here for a moment to explain two things. One - the brother needs a name. I can't keep calling him "the brother." I thought about calling him Ishmael (since you know...Isaac...) but I don't want to make him sound like some sort of outcast relative, so I think I'm going to call him Nate. I have no good reason for naming him Nate. And when Isaac reads this he's probably going to laugh at me for choosing it! But Nate he shall be. Secondly - this is important to the grand scheme of this story, so I'm going to point it out. I had a rather difficult driver's ed experience and have loathed driving ever since. Loathed it. I hate interstates, I hate cities, I hate one-way streets. And I could literally panic myself into a near heart attack at the very thought of driving to an unfamiliar place after dark. So for me to make this trek into a town I'd never been to before...after dark...well, it shows my undying affection for the handsome Isaac. Okay. Back to the story. Going to Nate's house.

I wanted to make a good impression and was so worried they wouldn’t like me; maybe it would have been better to wait until the date weekend to meet them, because if I met them and it didn’t go well…it could make for a long weekend later. I talked to Isaac for a while on my way over, and he promised me I’d like them and they’d like me.

When I arrived, everyone was already deep in conversation about something else, so I sat and observed…listened…tried my best to look cute in case Nate was one of those brothers who reported back about whether or not this was a good idea. They didn’t say a whole lot to me for a while, which was fine, because I mostly wanted to take in everything around me.

When I determined, however, that it was getting too late, and I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, Nate suddenly had a string of questions for me. Some were surface questions: Where had I gone to school? What was my major? Others required help. Who were my favorite sports teams? (Mr. Set-Up-Extraordinaire fed me the appropriate answers.) My favorite, though, was the question that came at the end. “What are your intentions with my brother?” he asked. My face glowed and I had no idea what to say. Since Isaac and I hadn’t met in person, I really wasn’t sure how to respond with the truth…which was that I wanted to marry him. Fortunately everyone else came to my rescue and told Nate not to ask me questions like that the very day he met me!

Nate and his wife were much fun to meet, and as I walked out the door that night, he told me I’d passed all tests with flying colors. Whew.

It was very late when I got home, and I had to (of course) spend some time on the phone with Isaac, reporting all the happenings of meeting the family, and then when I hung up, I just couldn't go to sleep until I'd sent off one last little email to him.

The next day, feeling pretty convicted about my ability to email Isaac but my inability to spend time journaling, I wrote, I’m so sorry I didn’t write last night, God. I was beat. I’ve got to figure out some new routines, I think. I love having Isaac in my life, but it was so packed already – and I need to figure out how to juggle it.

I had no idea that God was formulating a plan to create in me such a craving for Him that I would have no choice but to run to His arms, no matter how tired I felt.

I continued journaling about what should have been said on Sunday: Streams says, “God still has secrets hidden from the ‘wise and learned.’ Do not fear these unknown things, but be content to accept the things you cannot understand and wait patiently. In due time He will reveal the treasures of the unknown to you – the riches of the glory of the mystery…Do not be afraid to enter the cloud descending on your life, for God is in it. And the other side is radiant with His glory…Forge ahead into the darkness without flinching, knowing that under the shelter of the cloud, God is waiting for you.”

Those were prophetic words, but I didn’t know it then. Didn’t know I was about to learn what waiting patiently really meant. I had no idea a cloud of gargantuan proportion was about to descend on my life and fog over the bliss I lived that very day.