Waiting can be a hard thing, especially when we are young, as time has that tendency to drag in our early years. The famous sayings come to mind when thinking about waiting, like, "Good things come to those who wait." and "Time flies when you are having fun." Sometimes waiting comes in hard times and you are not always having fun but if you are waiting on the Lord, you can count on good things to come. I would like to relate a story, a story of my life that will hopefully be an encouragement to those who might be finding themselves in a waiting mode, a time of wondering and questioning what might be unfolding.
The year was 1984 and I was young just starting out in the path of life that lay before me. It was a warm spring afternoon and I was out working in my elderly aunt's garden, pulling some weeds and cleaning up a border in her yard for her that had over grown with bamboo. My heart was sad that day as I had been dating someone in the church that I was attending. I was lonely when I met him and longed to me married. He began calling me and then picking me up for church. He seemed nice and very interested in me. I was excited to have someone to sit with at church and not feel lonely. Within a month he began to make hints about being serious with me and mentioned marriage. I was thrilled to think about someone loving me and wanting to marry me for that is what I wanted most in life was to be loved and have a family. A few months went by and I met his folks and they liked me and he gave me some nice jewelry for Christmas so I was happy. He talked about maybe getting married in a year or so. Then one day in February he called me up and said that he wanted to go for a ride and he would be by to pick me up. Before we got to the end of my street he told me that he was breaking up with me and that he was not going to marry me. It all came as such a shock. He had been acting a little different the last week but I thought maybe he was tired from work or something else was bothering him, I didn't have any idea. He then proceeded to tell me that right before he asked me out the first time that he and his buddy made a bet that I was looking to get married and I would fall for his advances. So all this time, it was just a bet and nothing more. I was crushed. I was innocent and never thought a Christian would mess with someone and tell them something they did not feel.
Following that event for the next few days and weeks I fell into depression, losing weight, not caring about too much. Feeling lost and lonely and then the day I referred to about earlier happened. I was over at my aunt's house helping her. After I had been working for a while she called me in and said that she had some cold lemonade for me to drink and she wanted to tell me something important. I was glad for the break and went in the house with her. When we were sitting at her kitchen table she told me that she wanted me to inherit her wedding rings. I was honored. She was a widow now as her husband had passed away and her only son had died too. She was crippled in her hands and could not wear her rings, so I didn't know what they looked like. She showed me where she kept them and the reason she wanted me to have them was that I knew her love story and how she met her husband and a lot about their life together. I thanked her graciously and told her that I would treasure them always. When I went back outside to finish the work I was doing I heard God speak to me in my thoughts and said, "Elena, these wedding rings are my promise to you that you will be married." Joy came into my heart and I began to wonder who God would bring into my life. The answer to that came about 17 years later.
Many things happened to me in that 17 years. My aunt died in 4 years and I came into possession of her wedding rings, bride's book and wedding dress. My dear mother died that same month and it was so very sad for all of our family. Her death set me on a course I probably would not have gone if she lived. I moved from the area I grew up in and loved and moved to Southern California. I thought I was only going to live there a year but ended up being there for 16 years. As the years wore on I began to ask God to show me who I was to marry. I knew if God showed me I would not be hurt or sad, that this man would be all I dreamed of, because God knew me better than I knew myself and would not steer me wrong. My hope was simple. It was just to be with someone who loved God, loved me and wanted to have children. I had no grand ideas of great ministry or influence, just to be happy and serving God and to experience the power of the Holy Spirit in my life.
Through an amazing set of circumstances God gave me timing. I had a couple of prophetic dreams and I had some special scriptures given to me that pointed to an event in my life in the future. It was a trip to Russia. As it unfolded, I got to know Rich right after I began to plan on going on a 2 week missions trip to Russia. We had our first date less than a week before I left. He was everything I had dreamed of, godly, loving and handsome to boot! We soon became very good friends and were amazed at how well matched we were. When he began to open the scriptures to me and began to teach me things I had not thought of before. He was a very wise man and the truth he spoke to me rung true in my heart. He was the one my soul had longed for. I so wished my mother could have met him as I knew she would of loved him and felt close to him too. After courting for a year, he proposed to me and I accepted and we were married 5 months later. Our first kiss was on our wedding day and it was wonderful!!
The opening song at our wedding was, "I will wait on the Lord, I will wait as long as it takes..." Rich was 47 and I was 42 and neither of us had been married before. Even though we were middle aged we felt like we were young. The wait was worth it!
The next wait was a child. Rich said that if we were meant to have a child it would happen naturally without any help from doctors or medicine. He said that God can do anything and we would trust in that. I went back to the Lord for direction and timing. Again I had a couple prophetic dreams and some special scriptures. My hope was in the Lord and Him alone. Right before our 2nd anniversary I became pregnant but in 10 weeks I miscarried. I was devastated. By his time I was 44 and by the world's standards it was over for me. The chances of getting pregnant naturally after 45 is pretty slim. But I kept waiting and praying and trusting in God. After my miscarriage I came to the understanding of the year we would have a child. The only 2 people I told about it was a girlfriend and Rich. I became pregnant that year and God gave us a healthy and beautiful baby girl with no complications in my pregnancy and delivery. We were so very thankful to the Lord.
After having our baby I thought all was complete and our waiting was over. But in about 6 years God began to show my husband first and me second that there was a reason for our waiting for each other and waiting for a child, more than just our personal happiness. He began to show my husband that we would need to leave the traditional church attending practice of our culture and wait for the Lord out where all our friends and family were not. This is was difficult because they thought we were wrong. We love God and we love people but the church in America is mistaken and some cases very corrupt. The Lord is not with them in their buildings, paid staff and large groups sitting in pews. The Kingdom of God is in people and in them the work of the Holy Spirit will flow, each having something to contribute.
When we began to wait on the Lord after we left church attendance we began to find a lot of people who also had left church attendance on the internet. A lot of them left because of social reasons, being hurt by the social/hierarchy structure of the churches, or feeling left out or unnoticed, some disillusioned by bad behavior of the leaders, some noticing how the popular doctrines of prosperity or end times teachings did not line up with what the scripture taught, so they left and began to seek fellowship with people that were similar to them. Some of the people were into legalism like no T.V., no celebration of holidays at all, or they must celebrate the Old Testament holidays, the women must wear head coverings in the assembly of believers, you must only eat healthy foods and not sugar and so forth. We saw all this but we did not see revival, some were praying for revival and some were saying there would be no revival, that it was just a few hanging on to the end until the Lord comes.
What troubled my husband the most about our church attendance was that there was no power of the Spirit like Jesus said would follow his disciples. There was talk about the power but very little ever happened. Most people in the churches just trusted in the doctors and acted like God just healed through the doctors now. He began to realize that this lack of power was not just people not believing but by compromise. The leaders ignoring certain teachings of Christ to please the culture so as not to offend the people, so they would keep coming. One of the big ones was saying that the marriage bond was not permanent and that women could leave their husband and marry another and her and her second husband would not be sinning, committing adultry. Very few people even among the ones that have left regular church attendance will touch this issue with a 10 foot pole. To us this issue of immorality is like the proverbial "elephant in the room". It is there and causes all kinds of damage and havoc to the point of the Holy Spirit not even being with them. This so greatly saddens our hearts. If you address this issue, you will be left out in the cold, socially. You could be called a bigot, unloving, too harsh or they say you just don't understand the scriptures or get it. We understand this is not one of easy things that Christ taught. It is especially hard in our culture because of the worship of personal freedom. We believe there is great freedom in the Lord and he has given us many joys of fellowship with people, eating, celebrating, encouraging one another, music, creative skills, enjoying the outdoors and his beautiful creation. He has given us so much, but just like Eve in the garden, she had all those wonderful fruit trees to eat from but she wanted to eat from the one that God said not to.
So here we are waiting on the Lord. We are not foreigners to waiting as this has been the story of both of our lives. We have had pain and setbacks in our waiting but God has always been faithful to encourage us. We have seen revival in our own hearts and have grown so much since we have left regular church attendance and just had family devotions. We long for a local fellowship and local revival but have not seen it yet. This brings me to the picture at the top. Many years ago I gave my sister, my aunt's wedding gown that I got after her death. I had given it to her because of my many moves in Southern California and I was concerned I might lose it in my moves. I then forgot that I did that. My sister kind of forgot about it too but she found it tucked away in one of her closets and surprised me with it this Christmas as a gift. I was so happy to have it again and it took me back to the beginning of my journey of faith for confirmation of a husband, child and the work of His Spirit that I have longed for all of my life. When I received the wedding dress the Lord told me that this journey of the three fold confirmation is coming to an end this year and a new journey is starting for us, which is to walk in the complete confirmation!
16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16 -18
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