Dearest moms of graduating seniors,

I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. It’s only been 9 years since my youngest graduated from high school, but I well remember the emotional highs and lows of this season. God bless you. I’m praying for you right now as I type this, and wanted to share a little bit of encouragement for this new season of your life.

In a period of one year right after the other, both of our children graduated and went to college several hours away from home. It was as if one day I was a mom running ragged during two back-to-back senior years, and then… BAM! They were gone.

My first big ugly cry over the changes to come happened when our oldest was a junior and we watched his childhood best friend graduate from High School. The tears started flowing that day and didn’t stop for the next two and a half years. This mom cried through every “last” we all experienced, grieved over how our family life would never look the same, wondered what I would do since my job as a mom was basically over (not!), and battled that ever present mom-guilt over the struggle between the need to “get it all done” and the desire to just STOP and soak it all in.

You may be a first-time mom of a graduating senior whose nest at home remains full… or this may be your last graduating senior and you’re wondering what you will now do with your life. OR – you may have your empty nest bucket list ready and can’t wait for this new life season. Whether this is your first, last, or somewhere in the middle child to graduate, for moms it’s still a season of emotional roller coasting, full of excitement, joy, chaos, busyness, exhaustion, grief, and tears of all types that come at the most unexpected times.

Moms of graduating seniors, you can find great joy in this season if you will keep these four things in mind.

1. Your job as a mom is NOT over.

The job description just changes a bit. Though your children’s feet may no longer under your table every night, they still need you. They need your love and support as their wings stretch wide, your patient and listening ear as new boundaries are tested, and your forgiveness when you feel hurt or disappointed by them.

In full disclosure, I’ve not yet mastered this. After nine years of practice, my mom-default is still 1) Try to influence / control / fix everything, 2) Protect and defend with all my might, and 3) To give tons of unrequested advice that I know they need! We ALL are a work in progress.

During our first graduating senior’s college orientation, we parents had our own classes where we were challenged to stop being helicopter parents, and become umbrella parents instead. A helicopter hovers, it’s presence loud and blustery, and everyone around can hear and see it. We learned that, sadly, students of helicopter parents are hindered by the hovering, and develop a warped view of the realities of life.

However, umbrella parents are present, but tucked away in the student’s closet or backpack until needed. The student is confident that this umbrella is available, and can gratefully pull it out for shelter during a storm. Then when the skies are back to blue, the umbrella is returned to the space where it belongs until needed again. This was a beautiful analogy of learning to parent a person into adulthood. I still use this analogy today when I hear my helicopter engine start to whir.

2. Your children WILL push away from you at some point.

This will trigger the hurt-mom-feelings and the need to forgive (mentioned above). I was truly shocked and took it personally when mine did this. Then I read an article in the Huffington Post that contained the best description of this life stage. The article author quotes a book by Lisa Damour:

“Your daughter needs a wall to swim to and she needs you to be a wall that can withstand her comings and goings. Some parents feel too hurt by their swimmers, take too personally their daughter’s rejections, and choose to make themselves unavailable to avoid going through it again… but being unavailable comes at a cost…Their daughters are left without a wall to swim to and must navigate choppy – and sometimes dangerous – waters on their own.” Lisa Damour, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood.

The writer of the article, Kara Powell, goes on to say that she believes this push-off happens not only with girls, but with boys too, and encourages parents to anticipate this. “When your child swims to you, enjoy it; but don’t be surprised when they distance themselves rom you. That’s part of their journey from dependence to independence.”

It has not been easy being the wall. But many experienced moms have assured me that if I can continue to offer myself as a safe place for our children swim to – and then push off from – sweet adult relationships will be formed for years to come. I am beginning to see some fruit from being a wall.

3. Your most effective influence now happens through prayer.

Though I’m no longer with my children on a daily basis, Jesus is, and He is way more powerful over them and can speak to them through His Holy Spirit in ways deeper than my finite-mom-ability. 

When we pray for our children according to God’s Word, we can rest assured that God loves them sacrificially (John 3:16; Romans 5:8 & 8:37-39), sees all things going on in and around their lives (Hebrews 4:13), knows all things they must deal with during this season (Psalm 139), and is working through ALL of those things to produce something good for His glory – even through their difficult circumstances, choices, and struggles (Romans 8:28-30).

If I heard of something one of my children had done or was planning to do, and that mom-panic began to arise, there is a three-word prayer I would say over my child that would settle my soul: “Jesus, CHILD’s NAME, Jesus.” In those three words, I surrendered my baby to Jesus, who is always present, who loves him/her more than I do, and who is the most wise and powerful Daddy in the universe! I could then breathe again.

In Priscilla Shirer’s Bible study, Discerning the Voice of God, she encouraged moms to pray that their children would “Invest themselves fully in knowing Christ.” If that is our prayer, Priscilla goes on to say,

“The burden of responsibility for the desire and for the energy to engage in His will is God’s (Philippians 2:13). Furthermore, if they step away from what God desires for them in any way, He will quicken their hearts and let them know (Philippians 3:15)… God is already doing everything necessary not only to reveal His will to them, but to cause them to go after it.” Ch. 2, Day 4.

This is SO comforting to know and put into practice!

***There are tons of resources available to guide us in praying for our children from birth to adulthood, but the most influential book I’ve read, and keep returning to is Stormie OMartian’s “The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children.” A bonus through this book is that the author teaches how to release that sense of mom-guilt when we begin to doubt how we parented. It’s definitely a must read on praying powerfully for our adulting children.

4. Your life as a mom has great purpose post child-rearing.

Moms of graduating seniors, this is ultra important to know and remember! For years, many of us have invested so much in mothering that we can’t imagine what we will do with the space and time created by our birdies leaving the nest. The beautiful truth is that God has a purpose for this new season of our lives… a new (or renewed) calling… one that will probably require us to step out in faith and obedience.

If your nest will soon be empty, I want to encourage you to ask the Lord what it is that HE has planned for this new season of your life, and to keep your eyes prayerfully alert for new doors opened before you. God WILL let you know what HIS next is. James 1:5 makes us this promise: “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” Praise the Lord!

This emptying nest season is almost like a graduation for Christ following moms… where we are sent back out into the world to affect it for the glory of Jesus Christ. Don’t discount the wisdom God has been pouring into you during this mom-phase. He has people and places prepared to bless through YOU, and the investment of your newfound time and focus.

It is good to remember and treasure Solomon’s wise words during the sunset of hands-on mothering, “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Though we will naturally grieve as our seniors graduate and move into their next season, if we are walking through with Jesus, His paths will lead us to great joy in the days and years ahead.  

“Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.”  Isaiah 43:19

So moms… it’s time to become a wall your children can push-off from, an umbrella they can pull out as needed, a prayer warrior on their behalf like never before, and one who will say, “Yes, Lord” to whatever new thing God has for you in the days and years to come.

You CAN do this (in the strength of the Lord) and it will be full of God’s glory! It’s how we emptying nesters can look forward with hope, because “God has made everything beautiful for its own time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

May the Lord bless you, dear moms. I’m praying for you!
With love from my empty next to yours~

After struggling with an unnamed illness for fourteen years and not believing I would live to the age of 35, I began to pray for my husband’s new wife and my children’s new mom. I wanted that woman to be able to push my children on the swing set and vacuum the house, but more importantly, I wanted her to love the Lord and my family more than I ever did or could. On April 1, 2000, the day the Lord miraculously healed me, I became the very wife and mom I had prayed for. I became That Woman!

How I became That Woman:

To share my story, I’m reprinting an article I wrote back in 2001 for the Lifeway magazine “The Minister’s Family“. I had written an article the year before called “Answering the Call (of being a minister’s wife) When the Phone is Out of Order.” In that publication, I shared how the Lord had helped and enabled me to be a minister’s wife, mom, and serve Him beside my husband in our church(es) while living with major physical limitations.

By the time that article was published, the Lord had healed me! So, I wrote a follow-up article that was printed the next year. It’s called “I Am Now A Leaping Cow”. 

The name comes from Malachi 4:2, which is the verse the Lord gave me on the day He healed me. “But unto you who revere and worshipfully fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings and His beams, and you shall go forth and gambol like calves [released] from the stall and leap for joy.”

That’s exactly what I did! Here is my story…. I am Now a Leaping Cow!

PS: We even have a picture of the day I became That Woman!

Little did this young mama know how her world would change within mere hours of posing for this photo. I left this event sick, and by the time I walked into my front door that afternoon, I was well.  I was That Woman!

I am Now a Leaping Cow

“Answering the Call (of being a minister’s wife) When The ‘Phone’ is Out of Order” was the story of my life. At the age of thirteen, I knew that God had called me to be a minister’s wife, a mother, and an encourager of women. But four years later, I had a severe case of Mononucleosis, which was the catalyst that started me on a downward spiral with my health.

I went from a life of marching band, tennis, cheerleading, and power-walking to hardly being able to walk up porch steps. During some periods of life, I would be stronger than at other times, but life as I had known and imagined was changed forever!

How God helped us live before He healed me:

For fourteen years weakness was a daily companion, but Jesus was my Faithful Friend. He NEVER left me with a need. He gave me strength every day to do the things He had called me to do. He planed and grew a husband just for me – one with the motivational gift of service! He allowed me to have two children, and provided care for them everyday – either through giving me strength, or allowing my husband to work from home, or sending friends to step in when we didn’t know how we would get through the day.

When our twenty-six-year old was a baby, I became really weak and couldn’t lift him. God worked a miracle and sent us a home-schooled girl who tithed her time to help us. She came into our home to care for our son, and I would help her with her lessons. We were overwhelmed at God’s detailed provisions for our every need.

Daily, God reminded us of His love and of His promise in Hebrews 13:5 “…be satisfied with your present circumstances and with what you have; for God Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let you down (relax my hold on you)! Assuredly not!”

As a family, we clung to His promise and began to accept this “thorn” as what God would use to bring me into His likeness, and to bring others to Himself. There were days when Jesus helped me honestly thank Him for being physically weak, because He really did make His strength visible in my frailty (2 Cor. 12:7-10). I soon learned that anything I accomplished (even the task of brushing my own teeth) was really Jesus in me and through me. I could do nothing without His power.

After nine years of going from doctor to doctor searching for a diagnosis, The Lord led us to a wonderful internist in Nashville, TN. He discovered that I had fibromyalgia, a disease in the rheumatoid family. (At that time, there was no cure for fibromyalgia, but the symptoms could be eased with medication, exercise, and healthy eating habits.) We were so thankful to have a name for the physical problems that had been plaguing me since high school!

God continued to strengthen and sustain me year after year. Many times I would call out to Him to use doctors, medicine, exercise, vitamins, magnets, or the latest health craze to heal me. His answer was always a loving “No, but I will never leave you without help and support Heb. 13:5).”

Along with Scripture,

God used a quote from the movie, The Robe to encourage me to joyfully embrace the life He had allowed me to live. An unbelieving Marcellis questioned a paralyzed woman who found peace and faith in Jesus:

“You say He could work miracles, but He left you as He found you.” She gently replied, “I used to wonder at that myself, until faith taught me the answer. He could have healed my body, and then it would have been natural for me to laugh and sing. And then I came to understand that He had done something even better for me. He had chosen me for His work. He’d left me as I am so that all others like me might know that their misfortune needn’t deprive them of happiness within His kingdom.”

Jesus, His Names, His Words, and His Promises became sweeter to me every day. When I let Him do as He desired with my day, He always lifted me, walked with me, carried me, loved me, encouraged me, supported me and held my hand. Jesus became my Rock, Provider, Anchor, Protector, Daddy, Joy, Teacher, Leader, Lover, and Friend. I wish I could say that I walked obediently filled with Him every day, but I didn’t. Yet He remained Faithful and True. He kept His promise to never leave nor forsake me – even when I grumbled, complained, cried and demanded answers from Him. (Job 38 through 42:6 are sure fixes for a demanding spirit toward God!)…

How God prepared me to be That Woman

In February and March of 2000, God led seven special friends, who for years had been faithful prayer warriors on my behalf, to call me and tell me the same things. They each felt led to ask me, “What do you believe about God healing you?” Without praying and asking God to help me answer that question, I would quickly give the reply, “I’ve asked God to heal me, but for now, His grace is enough, and He will be my strength.”

After the seventh call, my husband and I “got the message” and decided to ASK GOD what He had for me in the way of healing. God led me to a scripture study in Matthew 17 where the disciples asked Jesus why they were not able to do the work that Jesus had sent them out to do. In verses 21-22, Jesus explained to them about the seriousness of faith, and consecration to the Father by prayer and fasting.

I began to pray and fast, although I didn’t go on any 40 day fast. I didn’t even go on a three day fast. I would fast when the Lord would tell me to, but because I didn’t do a “marathon” fast, I didn’t expect God to work a miracle in my life. (Truly, I know better than to think that anything I do is ever good enough for me to gain God’s approval, or astonishing enough to twist His arm to do what I want Him to do. – But my actions showed that I still chose to put limitations on God and on what He could and would do for me.)

To be honest, I was praying and wanting God to heal me, but only in the ways I deemed appropriate for today. In the past, I have rolled my spiritual eyes at people who talked of being healed, as if they are just a little bit more peculiar than I am. Of course, I would always respond with words like, “Wow! That’s Great! God is still in the miracle-working business! Praise the Lord!!!” But in my heart, I would be thinking, “I’ll just wait and see if it really works before I will believe it.”

How God healed me

However, on April 1, 2000, God humbled me, went beyond my limited belief in Him, and worked a miracle in my life. On a regular day, going about my regular business, God interrupted my life, and brought healing to my body!

While visiting with my sister and a friend of hers at a tea room, God used a conversation with the owner to speak His words of Scripture to me. I had accepted “MY illness as MY thorn”, but God was saying to me that this was NOT “MY” illness, but “His tool”. He whispered in my heart, “This is the day that I will heal you. Humble yourself before Me.” I bowed my head and said, “Lord, I believe, Help my unbelief!”

Then for the first time ever, I asked God to heal me without adding any suggestions of my own.

As we prayed, and as I let go of all preconceived ideas about how God could work in my life, He healed me!!! I experienced a heat that coursed through my body, and when I lifted my head, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had been healed! My legs no longer hurt, and my arms and hands no longer hung limply at my sides. I cried and laughed for joy at the same time!!! I jumped around and my legs didn’t bother me at all! God had restored my body, and I felt better than I had in 14 years. I felt like a teenager again!!! Praise the Lord!!!

After God healed me

On that day, I met my Savior as my Healer, and He made me well!! I can not find adequate words to express my excitement and joy, and my amazement and awe that God would choose to reveal Himself to me in this way!!! My heart is bursting to tell everyone that He really does still do miracles!

As soon as I returned home, I asked my Healer for a verse to commemorate the beginning of this new stage of life for me. He led me to Malachi 4:2, “But unto you who revere and worshipfully fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings and His beams, and you shall go forth and *gambol like calves released from the stall and leap for joy.” (Amplified version) *Gambol = skipping and leaping about in play! I am a leaping calf, and thrilled to be called one!!!

What I’ve learned about God’s healing:

I began studying every scripture passage I could find that contained words about healing. I have so many questions. But I know that as I keep on seeking God and His wisdom, He will continue teaching me what He wants me to know and understand. At this point, I can only share four things that my Lord has illumined to me about His healing.

1. Only God heals (not man, not methods, nor medicine), but if God so chooses, He can use man, methods, and/or medicine. (Isaiah 57:18-19; 2 Kings 2:19-22; 20:5-7)

2. God may not choose to heal our bodies but always chooses to be and do exactly what we need.
(2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Hebrews 13:5)

3. When God chooses to heal, it is NOT because we are “spiritual enough” or have done anything to deserve it. He heals only because of His great love and His majestic mercy. He chooses to heal for His glory and for His name’s sake. (Psalm 30:2-5, Jeremiah 17:14)

4. God always heals the brokenhearted. Through His Words, His Unconditional love, and His forgiveness by way of His Son, hurt hearts can be mended, and diseased lives can be made whole. (Isaiah 53:3-5, Psalm 107:19-20)

The Lord used a lesson from Beth Moore’s Bible study, Breaking Free, to help me grasp the balance between faith and healing. “Christ is fully God. He can heal anyone or perform any wonder, whether the belief of the person is great or small. Christ isn’t asking us to believe in our ability to exercise unwavering faith. He is asking us to believe that He is able.” (week 3, day 1, pg. 55)

How I so desire that every sick person would be healed! Yet Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us that God’s ways and plans for us are so much higher and better than the best we can dream up and design. Jesus loves you so much and is at the Father’s right hand interceding for you at this very moment (Romans 8:34).

Jesus told the disciples in Luke 10:20 that the only thing to truly rejoice in is the fact that He has saved us, and that our names are written in Heaven. If for no other reason than this, please join me in leaping for joy at being released from the stall of sin to the vastness of victory in Jesus!

Are you in need of God’s physical healing?

2 Corinthians 4:16-17 is an encouragement to look to God and His workings in and through our weaknesses and pains.

“Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!], since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.” (AMP Bible)

If you are physically broken:
• Refuse to be defeated,
• give your body (pains and all) to God to use for His glory,
• daily remember that God will NEVER LEAVE YOU HELPLESS!! (Heb. 13:5)

Does your heart need God’s healing?

Jesus said, “The ‘Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity]” (Luke 4:18, Amplified Bible). Jesus is the Healer of broken hearts.

If you are heart-broken:
• Release your heart to Him,
• read His Words of love,
• Trust Him to put you back together day by day, and piece by piece.

Every day that our Lord tarries can be a day for Him to work in and through our lives so that others will see who He is, and come to know Him as Savior and as Wonderful Daddy Lord (2 Peter 3:8-9).

The End ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~      ~     ~     ~

There it is… That’s my story… I can honestly say that if the Lord had chosen to allow us to live with that sickness for the rest of our lives, He would have continued to help us and live through us, and He truly would have been enough! In spite of all of the struggles, we had a wonderful life, because we have a wonderful Lord!

I pray that if you are in need of a miracle today, you’ll see that you actually already have one. You are still living and breathing, and The Lord has not left you, nor has He forsaken you (Heb. 13:5). He loves you, cares deeply about you, and nothing is impossible for Him!… Nothing!

I am praying that the Lord will take these words and use them in your life, for His glory. And, I’m praying for you, friends… and thanking the Lord for what He is doing in each of you as you wait upon Him.

With love, from That woman,

Also, Biblegateway.com also has several free options for daily emailed devotions for Lent.   So many other resources are out there just a google search away. And of course, we already have the Best Resource available to us – Jesus Christ Himself, who is The Word.  Whatever it is that we do between now and Easter, whether or not we formally observe Lent, let’s all remember that we are people of the cross, and not take salvation for granted.

Do you know the tradition and the reasons behind celebrating Mardi Gras?  How about the origin of the King Cake or observing Lent? Being the Baptist girl that I am, I didn’t grow up with these traditions, so for years, I assumed these were simply fun days to party and eat the most delicious pastry (with a plastic baby hide inside), then diet for the next 40 days.

However, as I began to research the origin of these celebrations, they have come to mean so much more to me. The root of these festivities can actually be found in Biblical truth and in Jesus Christ.

The season of Lent begins this next week… on Wednesday, March 5th.

Lent follows the Liturgical seasons of Advent and Epiphany where we seek and find Jesus, celebrate His coming into our lives, and determine to follow Him into the new year.  From fellowship and intimacy with our Holy God inevitably comes the realization of our sins.  And, that’s where Ash Wednesday comes in, where Lent picks up, and we are led into the blessed celebration of Easter.

 However, before Lent begins, there is Mardi Gras… And that is this Tuesday.

So – while you’re feasting on your King Cake, pancakes, meat meals, or whatever else it is that you plan to enjoy, may you remember the origins of these observances and glorify God in the midst of your celebrating.  

The Lord’s blessings upon you all~

PS: For more about the season of Lent, check out this post with three of my favorite free resources.

Are you anxious about the upcoming election results and the days that follow? So was I, until the Lord calmed my heart with this prayer:

Hi friends~ 

I have something I wanted to share with you.

In a few days, all ballots will have been cast for the next president of the United States of America. As November 5 approaches, we are inundated with information, observation, exaggeration, defamation, allegation, segregation, supplication, explanation, declaration, justification, and vindication… all vying for this Tuesday’s vote.

Like you, I’m so concerned for our nation – and I’m trying not to worry. So, I pray. But what if the party we are voting for loses? What are we to think? What are we to do? How are we to pray today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year?

These questions have been on my heart and mind for months. As I was praying for our country on the morning of September 11, I was conflicted in how to pray. I knew what I wanted… but I no longer had the confidence that what I wanted was what God wanted for us and for His glory. 

However, by the time I finished praying, my heart was at rest. And now, every time I find myself overly worried about the future, I remember how the Lord led me to pray on Sept 11. Then I do it… I pray and I breathe and I rest in the Sovereignty and Love of my Father.

I am sharing my prayer from that day in case anyone else needs to breathe and rest in the sovereignty of the Father. May the Lord use it for His work and glory!

Journal entry prayer.  Sept. 11, 2024

Lord, how do You want me/us to pray for our nation? 

When I read Isaiah, I realize that all your words and warnings to them could fit the USA at this very moment. We see from what you allowed your Beloved Nation to experience after your repeated warnings against the consequences of their choices… that an implosion from within and destruction from without is what is next for this “one nation under God.” 

We see throughout history how you have used those in authority to bring about your judgment on nations… and we know that your judgment is meant to bring us to repentance… and how repentance brings us back to You, Your freedom, Your peace, Your provision, and Your protection. 

However, when we pray for Your hand to stay the consequences that we know will eventually come, are we praying this because we don’t want to lose the comfort and freedoms we presently enjoy? Is this why I’m praying?

Historically, we can see that without an intervention from you, wickedness always wins. And the people become captives to a government-run-individual-freedom-removed-godless-leader-controled way of life. YET – we also KNOW that as the times get darker, people will seek (and find) YOU, the Light! 

We have been so blessed in this nation – to enjoy the freedoms we have. Selfishly, I don’t want to lose one more inch of this ground! I don’t want to lose the constitutional and amendment rights and ways of this nation.  I earnestly pray that You will help us keep these freedoms – and I beg You not to turn us over to the depraved minds and desires of those intent on going against Your word and ways – Please!!! Let Your justice and righteousness prevail in the United States of America!

But, Lord, I don’t know if this is Your will. 

So, after all said above, my one true prayer for this nation is “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!” May “Your kingdom come” – and however You know best to bring it about, we know that You will “give us each day our daily bread.” 

No matter what, we can trust You because we know that You are the only Rightful Ruler in this world. No matter what happens in our future elections, this is Truth: 

“O LORD, God of our fathers… You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In Your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand You.” 
(2 Chronicles 20:6)

I believe… please help my unbelief… and strengthen me/ strengthen all of Your children to live out kingdom purposes even if, even though, and even when personal comforts are gone. 

Thank you. LORD, that Heaven Rules! 

Your will be done… Your kingdom come and rule on Earth as You do in Heaven. 

This is my prayer for our beloved United States of America.

…Just some things to think and pray about as you process the days to come.

The LORD is Good, Faith-Full, and ALWAYS at work, and we can trust Him even if, even though, and even when.

In Jesus’ joy~

PS: Revive Our Hearts has a wonderful series running on the podcast called “Heaven Rules.” Every episode has been such a blessing – but especially this one. You will be encouraged!

Today James and I will have been married for 32 years! That sounds like a long time, but then I look around at our empty nest and remember that we are grandparents… and it feels just about right. He is the man for which I prayed, waited, and wrote. 

Several years ago I posted a three-part series on how I prayed and waited on God to bring James into my life, and I wanted to put them together into one piece and re-post the story for anyone who may need encouragement to keep waiting upon and trusting in The Lord. 

God does see, hear, and provide in His most perfect of ways.  If you or anyone you love is waiting on God for that special someone, may the Lord use this testimony to bring you renewed hope and encouragement… and may He continue to use our marriage and our lives for His great glory.

Happy 32nd Anniversary, James Walker.  You were SO worth the wait!!!  I love you~ 

On October 17, 1992, two individual lives became one, and a promise was made before God and witnesses that this couple would tough it out till death parted them…through better or worse, richer or poorer, and through sickness and health. 

Over the years, as in all marriages, we’ve faced numerous seasons of both joy and sorrow, peace and difficulty… things, that if we hadn’t been committed to God and to each other, could have / would have torn us apart.

Though I’m still no sage at this stage of life and matrimony, I wanted to share with you the one thing that I know has made a difference in our marriage.  It’s something that preceded even my meeting James Walker.  And that thing is prayer.

From the time I was in my mother’s womb, my family prayed for me and for my spouse.  And over my growing-up years, I too, learned to pray for my future husband.  By the time I was 13, God had called me to be a Minister’s wife, mother, and encourager of women through His Word.  Though I didn’t really know what in the world that would mean, I began to pray for my ministry man.

I prayed and looked for him…

I prayed and looked for him through high school, but he wasn’t there.

I prayed and looked for him through college… A Christian college where all kinds of preacher-boys attended… but he wasn’t there.

So I decided to start a journal for my future husband – in faith that one day I would find him. 

In this journal I wrote about significant things that were happening in my life, pretending that he was merely out of town and missed them.  (We didn’t have text or email back then… so writing letters was “normal” – grin.) I never let myself write “Dear ____”.  I wanted to save “Dear {insert name}”  for the day I knew my husband’s name. 

So I prayed… and waited… and wrote…

I prayed and looked for him in the singles department of our large church… and couldn’t find him there (for a few years, at least).

So I continued to write to him. 

I had purchased a beautiful leather-bound journal and transferred the college-written letters into it.  Somehow having a leather “real book” made him seem more “real”.

I was getting desperate.  Friends were getting married all around me. So… like any Christian girl might do…

I finally gave up. 

During my second year of teaching 2nd grade, I married Jesus since I couldn’t find His man for me… and dedicated myself to live with Him as my husband… and decided that we would spend our lives on the foreign mission field somewhere.  {Important to notice the words “I decided”… “foreign mission field”… Not good – unless it’s GOD’s decision!!!}

But God had not yet healed me and I was physically weak, barely making it some days.  How in the world I thought I would get accepted into any mission program at that point, I just don’t know! Ugg!}  My wise school principal encouraged me to keep waiting and praying and trusting in God,

So I gave up those missionary plans and just kept praying… and waiting… and writing.

I prayed for my husband every time I felt lonely.  I prayed for him when I would hear a great sermon or be convicted about something through my quiet times – I prayed that he would be convicted or taught the same thing too.  I prayed for him when I saw tragedy – prayed for his protection.  I prayed for his mind, his heart, his choices, his joys, his sorrows, what he was doing with his present time, his job, and his future.  I prayed for him each morning as I started a new day, and every night as I went to sleep.  Most of all I prayed for his walk with the Lord, and begged God to mold him into the Spiritual leader of our home.

I prayed… and waited… and wrote.

Praying… and waiting {albeit not always with the greatest of patience}… and writing in my husband’s journal seemed to somewhat satisfy the angst in my soul to find that promised “ministry-man” from the Lord.  Looking back, I was young.  Really young.  But at the time, when most of my college friends were already married, and many of my single friends had engagement rings on their fingers, it seemed like God had forgotten me and my dedication to trusting Him with finding me a husband. 

I thought I was past my prime.  So, I often tried to “help God along” …  always to no avail.  Others tried to help God (and me) find my man, and that never worked out either. 

Except one time. And once was all that was needed.

I had a list in my prayer journal of the names of potential “blind dates” that my friends had arranged for me.  It was generally the same repeated conversation – “You’re a nice girl.  He’s a nice guy.  You two should meet.”  And we would.  Sometimes we’d meet and become great friends.  Other times, it just wouldn’t work out.  But always, I’d write the nice guy’s name down on my page of “possibilities” in my prayer journal.

See, I felt that if God allowed this “nice man” to enter my life enough for me to possibly spend even one evening with him, then God had crossed our lives for some purpose.  Because of that knowledge, I could invest in what God was doing in his life by praying for him.  Every time a name was given to me as a “nice guy you should meet,” I’d write his name on my list. {If he had qualities I especially liked, I’d put a star by his name. haha.  I had this down to a science!}

Every so often, I’d turn to that page of possibilities and pray through the names written there.  Though some of these blind dates never materialized, I still prayed for the guy.  It was kind of like being a secret pal to someone – investing in a life I knew little about, but one that God cared deeply about.

On a cold January day in 1992, I ran into the mom of a little boy who had been in my classroom several years earlier.  After we chatted for a moment, she said those too-familiar words: “I have someone I want you to meet.” 

She went on to tell me how God had put me on her heart for this man… and how he was a nice Godly guy and I was a nice Godly girl and how we’d be great together.  blah blah blah.  It was’t that I didn’t care, but I was tired… physically sick and tired, and truth be told… spiritually tired and weary of waiting and of praying and of writing.  Inwardly I groaned.  But outwardly, I let her tell me the name of this guy and said that I’d pray about it and pray for him.

When I got back to my prayer journal, I had one line left on that “possibility” page.  ONE LINE, y’all!

And guess whose name I wrote on that one line!!!?

You guessed it… James Walker!

In an unlikely place at a most inconvenient time, God brought the name James Walker across my path, and I wrote it on the last line of the “possibility page” in my journal.  Then, because I was sick, I went home for bed rest.  Praying… and waiting… and writing… and resting.

What I knew then in my head and mostly tried to act upon, I now know in my heart.  God doesn’t need us to put ourselves “out there” in order for us to find His will, His plan, or His mate. 

Let me say this again:

God doesn’t need us to put ourselves “out there” in order for us to find His will, His plan, or His mate.

In the most unlikely time and at the most unexpected place, He can bring about what ever it is that He desires for our lives – in His perfect timing and in His perfect way.   (I was actually in a doctor’s office when I ran into the mom who told me about James.)

While we are waiting on God and praying and trusting, we must also be obeying.  As long as we are obeying God right where we are, He will guide us and we will be in the right place for Him to accomplish His best in and through our lives. 

While I rested and recovered, I prayed for the guy named James Walker, along with the other people in my journal.  Soon, I began receiving sweet cards from the girls in my single’s Sunday School class.  And oddly enough, they all mentioned a “friend” they had named James Walker.

I met James on my first Sunday back at church from my month of rest.  It was February 23rd,1992.  Exactly one month later, I knew James Walker was the one God had planned for me!

See, besides praying… and waiting… and writing in my “husband’s journal,” I had also been writing something else.  Something that I started when I was 13 years old. 

A list.

A list of all of the qualities I wanted in a husband. 

It was more like a file folder full of scraps of papers and corners of church bulletins than an official list.  Whenever I would see or hear of or think of a quality I wanted in a husband, I’d write it down and tuck it away in a file labeled “Husband.” 

Some of the qualities were deeply Spiritual and important.  Others were absolutely silly and unnecessary for a great marriage.  But all were important enough to me for me to write down and give to the Lord.  I reasoned that if they were important to me, and if I gave them to Him, He would give them back to me if they were best and if He could receive glory through them.

For example, I asked for a man of Godly integrity who enjoyed serving the Lord. I also asked for a man who would enjoy drinking coffee and watching old movies with me.

And guess what?!!!

James Walker had those plus every single quality I had asked for in a husband! 

I didn’t know it at first.  In fact, we had gone on just three dates when it seemed that everyone at church already had us “married off.”  I didn’t think I liked him in that way, so I prepared a Crock-pot roast and invited him for Sunday dinner in order to give him the “lets just be friends” speech.

However, that Sunday morning before dinner, our preacher said something that would be a life-changer for me.  He said, “Are you standing in the door way of what God has for you because you don’t think it is His very best?” 

I was so “done” with dating, and had just “married Jesus,” but I felt as if God was speaking directly to me that morning.  “Was I standing in the door way of what God has for me that is His very best, but I didn’t think it was?”  I let out a sigh and looked up at James Walker in the choir loft and told the Lord:

“Lord, I just don’t care about my plans anymore.  I don’t want to stand in the doorway of what you have for me.  So even if you want me to marry that James Walker up there, I will do it.  I just don’t want to miss your best.”

When church was over, I rushed home and set out the meal.  It felt like I was fattening up the calf before the kill.  All was going as planned until I tried to give the “friend-speech.”  Each time I started to say it, God would remind me of something on my list, and would show me that James had that specific quality.  So I’d take a bite of food, regroup, and try again.  This lasted through the entire meal and two cups of coffee afterward. 

When it was time for James to return to church to get ready for the evening service, I still hadn’t told him that we could “just be friends.”  I was preoccupied thinking about what my friends would say when I told them I couldn’t do it, when James held out his hand to me.  He unassumingly said, “Let’s pray before I leave.”  So I took his hand… and in the middle of his prayer, I FELL IN LOVE!

My heart did a 180!  Instead of going back to church that night and telling my friends that I “let him down easily” – I had to go back and tell them that James was the one!!!

He left my house completely unaware of any of this, and I was left dumbfounded.  I was in love… and it was a completely different feeling than I had expected or experienced.  I was overwhelmed, excited, nervous, and energized.  But mostly, I was confused.   So I did what any List-making-praying-waiting-girl would do, and I pulled out that file called “husband” and compiled a master list of 10 years of quality collecting.

Guess what I discovered???

There were 113 qualities and characteristics on my list. 

113! And James Walker met every one of them!

Soon my parents met James and agreed that he was the one for whom they, too, had prayed. 

On the day that they met James and agreed that this was God’s man for me, I was able to do something I had been waiting for years to do: I wrote “Dear James” in the heading of a new page in my “Husband Journal, then wrote to him all I experienced as God brought us together.  

It was a monumental event for me.

I kept praying and waiting and writing, then gave the journal to James as a wedding gift.

We met and married in under 8 months time.  To God be the glory!

I share this story in gratitude to both James and Jesus, and in hopes that it will encourage any dear readers who are waiting and praying for God to do something big in your lives or in the lives of your loved ones.  Through this 10 year period of praying… and waiting… and writing, I learned some beautiful truths:

1.  Nothing is too big or too little for God!  Well-meaning people would tell me that my list was too long or too specific.  Several times I asked the Lord if I needed to let the list go, and I never felt like that’s what He wanted.  I knew that if God wanted to answer every request on that list, He would and could do it.  And, God knew that whether He did or didn’t give me what I asked, I would still trust and glorify Him through His answer.

2.  It’s in the little things that we often realize how much God loves us and cares about the intimate details of our lives.  I expected God to answer the important Spiritual things on the list with a YES.  But truly… It wouldn’t have been a game-changer if my husband didn’t like old movies or coffee {well… maybe the coffee… jk!}.  The fact that God answered even the silly and unnecessary things on my list make me love both God and James even more!

3.  If it’s important to us, it’s important to God.  He will never laugh or make cruel fun of us for the desires of our hearts.  If, as we are praying and obeying and waiting when we happen to be desiring something that is not good for us, He will help change our desires into something that IS good for us.  Nothing about our lives, our desires, our choices, or our loves is unimportant to God.

For this man I prayed… and waited… and wrote… And God granted me my request.  May He forever receive glory through our lives and marriage!