Do me a favor and take a moment and look at your watch or a clock in the room....watch the second hand move around the clock face for just two minutes....did it seem like an eternity? Sometimes sitting in the "waiting room" of life seems like an eternity doesn't it? Waiting is a season that begins and you are not sure when it will end.
These past few months in the Mitchell home have been spent in the waiting room...both literally and figuratively. This season has been one of mixed emotions, stress, anxiety, prayerful intercession, joy and pain, healing and miracles, and times filled with more questions than answers. Since April, we have experienced the birth of our beautiful daughter, Jon's loss of a job, Jon and I both spending the summer together at home with Ansley, me starting back to teaching in August, Ansley starting school, Jon working part-time, health concerns in my family, Jon's parents seeking new direction in their ministry, my own health concerns as I dealt with numbness, tingling, and muscle spasms which led to blood work, a brain MRI, an EKG, an Echocardiogram, and visits to the ENT, Ob/Gyn, Neurologist, Internal Medicine Doctor, Chiropractor, Cardiologist, and E.R. Jon's job search has been full of ups and downs as he sends out resumes, makes phone calls, and has leads which rarely turn out to be fruitful. Ansley, despite this season in our lives and home, is resilient, peaceful, thriving, and content. Yet, there are joys as we celebrate the amazing milestones our daughter reaches almost daily, as we rejoice in the favor the Lord keeps giving us and our extended family, as the anticipation builds as we await my sister's baby, Jack, due in October and Jon's sister's baby due in March.
I list all of these happenings in our home and hearts not in the hopes that you will pity us or even as prayer requests, I list them because it is our life right now and it is where God has positioned us for such a time as this. And yet, do you know what? During this dry summer season of what some would have classified a drought, God is proving to us that He is preparing us for a harvest in our family. We are in the waiting room and we can say only through the grace of God that we are content in being here. We are learning that the enemy wants to steal our joy through focusing on two things: failure and that which is incomplete. It's easy right now to feel like we are not succeeding and have not reached a place of ultimate victory in this battle we are fighting. However, the truth is WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED!!
Whether you are sitting in a literal waiting room or a figurative waiting room, I bet you have two questions: "WHEN is this going to get better or change?" and "WHAT do I do right now?" Guess what we have learned? If what you are waiting ON becomes what you are hoping IN...it is a dangerous spot to be in! Why during this season should we complain or think that our way is disregarded from the Lord? Do we not know? Have we not heard? Isaiah 40:28 says, "How can you say that the Lord does not see your troubles? How can you say God refuses to hear your case? Have you not heard or understood? Don't you know that the Lord is the everlasting God!"
Wow, did you get that? We have to shift our perspective from the "WHAT" and the "WHEN" to the WHO!! Jon and I are learning that WHO we are waiting on is WHO we are hoping in! HE IS THE EVERLASTING GOD!
My mantra these days has been, "Karen, when you don't know what to do, your hope is not what or when but WHO!"
Through prayer, Jon and I are content to linger where He has us. We are wrestling with how we can disconnect from the world in order to reconnect with God. We believe that this is where we will find the strength and wisdom to follow Him to where He is leveling a new place for our family. WE ARE LEARNING TO BE CONTENT IN THE PROCESS. We will stop lusting for the vision or ultimate victory. Right now, we enter this fall season with expectant hearts as we linger in the PROCESS of what God is doing in our lives now.
In 1 Samuel 14:1-17, Jonathan was fighting and his father, Saul, was sleeping. When Saul awoke, Jonathan had already killed 20 men. Later, Saul joined his son and the rest of the army. Later after the battle, Saul did not want anyone to eat the honeycomb on the ground in the forest until ALL of his battles were won. You see, Saul did not want to celebrate a partial victory. Jonathan disregarded his father's command and ate the honey. Saul did not want them to celebrate the partial or the process but Jonathan said, "A command like that only hurts us. See how much better I feel now that I have eaten this little bit of honey. If the men had been allowed to eat freely from the food they found among our enemies, think how many more we could have killed!" When Jonathan ate the honey...he was celebrating a partial victory.
Today, Jon and I are choosing to celebrate the victories we have in Jesus Christ. If we ever want to get to the ultimate victory, we have got to celebrate the process or the partial victory. Everyday in our home and in my workplace and in our world we see victories. We need to have a "little taste of honey" and realize that we don't have to wait until ALL is good to have a "nice day"! My friends, learn with us that God never intended for us to fight battle after battle with no refreshment or honey. We must praise Him before He will perform. There is something that happens everyday that causes each one of us to lose our joy...but we do not have to be a "cover model" for the book of Lamentations!!! We need to PRAISE HIM! Remember while in your waiting room all that God has already conquered, the miracles He has done, the ways He has moved, the blessings He has given, and praise Him where you are right now! We are tying to learn how to do this.
We do not know the next direction our lives will take. Where will Jon work? Will I be completely healed from these muscle spasms? Will we stay here in Birmingham? Where do you want our family to minister outside of our home and workplaces? Will people in our family who are suffering be healed of pain? Where are you leading our family and extended family next? Here we sit Lord...Jon, Ansley, and myself. We choose to celebrate where we are right now. After all, you created the world in 7 days not 1. On the first day, you only made light! You could have done it all BUT YOU DID NOT! You are a God of process!! After that first day, you stepped back and said "It is Good!" You didn't wait until the 7th day to say "It is Good." So, we wait.....
On that 7th day, you said "It is VERY Good!!" That was the ultimate victory. We anticipate the ultimate victory in our family...The Mitchell Family. But until then, however long it may be, we stop and like Jonathan we taste the honey! We celebrate all you are doing RIGHT NOW in our family...for we can stand and say that "It is Good!"
