The Waiting Room

There are small clues, hints, bits, & pieces of this story all throughout my blog since February 2012. But here's the story in its entirety.

It all started in February 2012. Dustie was on one of his treks to Israel. I was in Shreveport staying with my parents (1) so they could help with the boys, (2) because I had to be there everyday for work anyway, (3) but mostly because I'm a "scaredy cat" & don't like staying home alone.

I got a phone call from Dustie. It was one of the first days of his Israel trip. We talked about his day & he told me that he had an awesome quiet time while on a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. He said the Lord spoke to him & that he wanted me to start praying about what God told him. He said that God told him that He would be moving us from Vivian. 

Being in the ministry, this is not unheard of, but it still caught me off guard. I told D that I would start praying about it...so that's what we did...we prayed.

After talking with the Lord for some time, He also confirmed it in my heart that we would not be in Vivian forever. We prayed, sometimes fasted, & sought the Lord in as many ways as we could. Everything He told us was about waiting on Him & trusting Him. During this time, D sought wise counsel from some of his mentors & we waited & trusted.

On June 25th, we were in the hospital & I just had John earlier that day. I was trying to sleep in the hospital room & D was having his quiet time. D basically asked the Lord in his quiet time if He really told him what He did in Israel, or if he had just made it up because up until this point, not much had changed. Right then the Lord gave him the verse Habakuk 2:3:

³ For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

Just to emphasize how awesome this Word from God was, here it is in a different version:

At the time I have decided,
    my words will come true.
You can trust what I say
    about the future.
It may take a long time,
but keep on waiting—
    it will happen! 

(Contemporary English Version)

He woke me up to read the verse to me. I thought it was great! D asked if it would bother me if he watched a podcast on his iPad & I told him no, so he picked a random sermon. As the preacher started, he said, "Today I will be preaching from Habakuk 2:3." WHAAATTT?? (Again, D had to wake me up to tell me of God's goodness & awesomeness. That's not a common verse like John 3:16...that's in dad gum Habakuk!!)

From this point on, it had been confirmed that we were to get a new calling from God, we were in what we started to call, "The Waiting Room." (Based on a series of Steven Furtick's sermons that the Lord gave us during this time as well.) We did not feel led to send a resume out anywhere. Our thinking was that if God wanted to move us, He would make it happen. A couple of D's mentors asked him if they could send his resume to a church or two. With each specific church we prayed about it before consenting. In other instances, churches would contact D out of nowhere (aka...we don't know if or how they got D's resume). We even went as far as an initial interview with one precious church, but after lots of prayer, we did not feel that was where the Lord wanted us to go. (Let me just interject a random thought of how Heaven is gonna be so awesome. I love meeting Christian strangers & immediately feeling the family bond with them solely based on being adopted by God. That's one fantastic thing I took from The Waiting Room.)

This part of the story has been a bit long-winded, but looking back, I can see how each of those instances prepared us for, or confirmed God's message in us what God had for us.

For months & months, we stayed in The Waiting Room. Then, on May 21, 2013, the Lord gave us a different message through my Bible Study in Ruth. He gave us the verses Isaiah 43:18-19:

¹⁸ “Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

And again in the CEV (just for good measure):

Forget what happened long ago!
    Don’t think about the past.
¹⁹ I am creating something new.
    There it is! Do you see it?
I have put roads in deserts,
    streams^[a] in thirsty lands.

I immediately texted the verses to D. This was HUGE! This was our first message from God other than, "Trust, Wait, or have faith." God was telling us that it was finally about to happen!!!

I must stop here b/c the next part gets into a new "chapter." God was not kidding. This new thing WAS about to happen, & it "did not tarry!"

Here's a screen shot of mine & D's text convo on May 21, 2013.