a season of waiting
A waiting season does not have to be a wasted season.
Rich Wilkerson Jr.
I heard this line on his wife DawnChere’s insta story as part of a reflection of their 8 year infertility journey and it made me reflect on my own season of waiting and just how true these words are.
When you have chronic health issues it is very easy to sink into dark places and to lose belief in the promises of God. And I have 3 of those, or as my therapist likes to say, they have me. I found out I had endometriosis at 17, celiac at 20, and fibromyalgia which caused chronic fatigue, vertigo and TMJ at 23. So I have had 10 years of health diagnosis but 17 total years of dealing with health problems.
And fibromyalgia was/is the hardest to cope with. Before I was officially diagnosed I had been in an insane flare that lasted almost a year. It happened the summer after I graduated from Biola University with my undergrad degree and I ended up spending 3 months on bed rest, and moving back in with my parents.
So fatigued that for months I could only stay awake between 30 minutes to an hour before needing a nap. I couldn’t watch tv, or listen to music, and I couldn’t drive. The vertigo was so crazy it took 2 years for me to be able to regain the ability to drive longer than 15 minutes at a time. I could only listen to sermons, one sermon in particular, “But, What About Your Heart”, by Ricky Jenkins, preached about Joseph and his season of waiting and ultimately his deliverance. One day I will write more about that sermon.
It’s my favorite sermon because there’s a line that saved me. “Coincidence, I don’t think so, nothing just happens, if God wants to, God certainly can, deliver anyone out of anything.”
I would listen to this sermon on repeat every day for months until the tears stopped flowing, the anxiety stopped, and the devils lies stopped winning in my head. Believing that there was some story God was going to use from my pain, that it didn’t just happen, that He allowed it for a reason, ultimately for His Glory.
I have clung to that line for years, in so many seasons of waiting and questioning, believing that if it was in God’s will He would deliver me from physical pain and guess what friends, He hasn’t. But I’ve had many years to look back on that waiting season to see it was not wasted. If that season had not happened, I would not have ended up being a nanny, watching 4 kids for almost 7 years, I would not have worked at a church, I would not be a freelancer, I would not be getting a master’s from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the top communications school in the world and I would not currently be in San Fransisco interning for one of the largest ad agency’s in the world.
And when I get discouraged I go back and play this sermon, it’s saved on the favorites on my phone and computer as “Best Sermon Ever” and I remind myself that “God’s purpose is far more important than my pain” and I never would have been able to do the work I am doing now if God had not allowed pain to enter my story. So if you are in a waiting season, be encouraged, don’t waste this time, lean in and look to God.