How Long Must I Pray?

Day two of the serenade presented a song by a group called Tenth Avenue North. I admit I don't know their music - and this may have even been the first time I heard this song. But again, I couldn't believe how appropriate the words were for my life.




I'm not a song writer. You've probably gathered that I'm much too wordy for my own good. But if I could write songs, this one could have been my theme. Especially these lines:

“How long must I wait, must I wait for You? How long til I see Your face, see You shining through? I’m on my knees, begging You to notice me. I’m on my knees, Father, will You turn to me?...Could the Maker of the stars hear the sound of my breakin’ heart?...Right now I can barely stand. If You’re everything You say You are, won’t You come close and hold my heart?"

I wrote the words to the song in my journal and kept it open on my desk all day at work. In fact, this began the season when I couldn't be away from my journal or my Bible. I carried them with me everywhere. To work...to lunch...everywhere. I never knew when I might start gasping for air and I'd have to write a prayer in order to get through the moment. And I also never knew when God might say something to me and I didn't want to lose any of it. This journey was much too important to lose.

I wrote things like, Help me. It’s early in the day yet, but I am struggling. It’s the 25th – the day he told me he loved me and now I wonder if he remembers me at all. Hold me today. I need to cast my anxiety on You instead of clutching it to myself. Help me, Jesus, today.
Later that day, Isaac posted an update on his blog. Since it was the only way I could know what was going on in his world, I lived for those updates. And they were pretty infrequent. Among other things, that day he told the story of Nate's little boy having a seizure. (This had actually happened while I was in Virginia Beach, and I'd heard about it through the grapevine, but this was the first he wrote about it.) As he wrote about how terrifying that experience had been to witness, I grew angry.
Angry that I was not there with him for that. When I was nine, I babysat a little boy just about his nephew's age who had the very same kind of seizure. I literally knew exactly what he meant about how scary it was to watch. It was one of those moments when I could have helped. I could have related. I could have understood. And yet it felt like he didn’t want me. And that made me so angry.

That night, I needed some sort of interaction. During this particular part of the desert, I was such a mess, I was completely holed up in my house most of the time. I had stopped doing social things entirely. The only reason I got out of the house was if someone came and made me go somewhere. I was literally incapable of initiating any sort of plans on my own. But that night, being alone was the worst thing for me, and I knew it.

So I got online and started chatting with my brother-in-law, who, by the way, is one of the wisest people I know. He said to me, as I shared with him the way Satan seemed to be after me, “You are so listening to the Lord. Let it be a divine appointment from Him. Trust the Lord, the Lover of your soul, to take your deepest need into consideration and to do what is absolutely best for you, even if it is uncomfortable. You know where doubt, accusation, and such come from…Anita Schrock used to say run from that because it smells like fire from the pit of hell.”

Another way God spoke to me during my entire desert was through the words people wrote on their blogs. I learned that specifically the blogs of moms who had lost children or struggled with infertility seemed to touch me the most. They were honest about their questions, doubts, fears, and anger in the face of delayed desires. This night, Kelly's blog said, “Count EVERYTHING you go through as joy because you don’t know what kind of testimony God is building in you and who in your life you will be able to encourage and how you will one day be used because of what you have faced.” I knew it was true, but I wasn’t sure I could count this sickening journey as joy.

That night I journaled, Streams says, “Oh if only Job had known, as he sat in the ashes, troubling his heart over the thought of God’s providence, that millions down through history would look back on his trials. He might have taken courage in the fact that his experience would be a help to others throughout the world…We never know the trials that await us in the days ahead. We may not be able to see the light through our struggles, but we can believe that those days, as in the life of Job, will be the most significant as we are called upon to live. Who has not learned that our most sorrowful days are frequently our best?”
I also went back to Gloria Gaither’s comments at the World Changers convocation back in March. She said this completely off the cuff, but it became a foundation in my desert: “Serving God is going with what you know to do today with all the passion you have…Because it’s not about the long-range plans. It’s about being faithful, with passion, for this moment. My mother used to say, ‘God’s will for your life is God’s will for this moment.’”

Jesus, keep me so faithful. Faithful to love and to pray for my sweet boy. Faithful to allow Your loving, refining hand to reign over my life. Faithful to trust You in this silence. Faithful to believe I know how to hear You. Faithful to serve You by sitting quietly and listening. Faithful to prepare. Oh Jesus. My life has been preparation. Keep me going now my Lord God.