Recently, I was honored to be asked to speak on Sis. McKenzie Holden’s Podcast, Healing from the Inside Out. In that episode I was able to share a part of our testimony that I have never shared before. Since then, I just can’t seem to get away from that snippet of our testimony so I felt like sharing it in here as well.

As humans it’s our fleshly nature to want what we want when we want it. If we want it, we buy it. If we’re hungry for it, we eat it. If it’s something that we wanna do, we do it. If it’s something that we have to save up for, we do what it takes. That’s just life; that’s how we do things. We like to have control over our wants and needs. There’s sometimes though that we have no control over what we are dealt with in life or our control is very limited.

What about when God has it in control but we try to take over?

During our waiting season and infertility journey, we had so many suggest, out of love, adoption or foster care. We have even had some ask if we ever thought about taking that route. The answer is yes, we tried. We tried to get into foster care two different times in our waiting season. Once in Oklahoma and another time after we moved to Arkansas. Even though I was willing to take that avenue, deep down I was afraid to because the real desire of my heart was to have my own. God knew that too. I was afraid of getting attached and then the case take a turn and we would have to say goodbye. I knew that my heart wanted a child so bad and then to have to say goodbye to one would even add to the pain. Yet, I was willing to try. I knew what God had promised me so I just wanted to speed up the process of getting what I wanted. I thought that it could be my answer.

The first time we was getting into the foster care system, we had been through all the steps to take and all that was left was to sign some papers and then they would start finalizing everything. I received them in my email while we was out of town for the weekend visiting Dustin’s family. Up to this point, we had not told anyone what we thought was fixing to take place in our lives. We was just gonna let it happen and then tell once we were caregivers. I will never forget when the Lord spoke and let us know that it was not His will. We were driving down the road with my in-laws and my father in law began to tell us about a man that he knew. He said that the man came up to him one day and said that the Lord had moved on him to tell my father in law to tell his son and wife that whatever they were fixing to do, they needed to wait and not do it. When Kevin told us that in the car, it got silent. I couldn’t see Dustin because I was setting in the back and he was driving but in my heart I knew exactly what God was telling us. I remember crying and Dustin told his Mom and Dad what our plans were and how we had the papers to sign but we was waiting till we got home to turn them in. Needless to say, we did not turn those papers in. Instead, we decided to continue to wait on God and His timing.

I was relieved but also at the same time frustrated. I wanted to speed up the process. I wanted to be a Mom! But the whole time, God had it in control and He wanted to keep it that way. It was very hard to have to submit to His timing but it was for the best even if I didn’t like it.

Fast forward a few years from that time. We had taken a big step and began a new chapter of life at our new home in Arkansas. We were still waiting for our promise and getting weary in the waiting season. We decided to try foster care again. We thought that maybe it was now time and it would be okay. We got in contact with an agency and went to the classes and started the process again. We got to the very last step and hit a dead end. We did not have everything changed over to our new home state of Arkansas and they was requiring it all to be changed before our case could be finalized. So we began the process of getting everything switched over and in the process we began feeling that uneasy feeling again. It was the Lord letting us know that this wasn’t His plan for us. So with heavy, yet hopeful hearts, we decided not to go through with the plan. Instead, we decided to continue to wait on God and His timing.

It was such a difficult thing in my human nature to not have control over our situation. It seemed completely out of our hands! Especially after hearing Doctors say we couldn’t have children of our own, I couldn’t understand why God would not let me love on someone else’s baby who needed love. All along God knew what my heart could handle and what it couldn’t.

There was also another time where we tried to take matters into our own hands. While we lived in Oklahoma still, we went to a concert with some friends. They gave a presentation about the children in other countries that you could sponsor and call them your own. They encouraged you to pray for them and write them, purchase things for them and treat them as if they were your own, and even call them your own. It was a beautiful presentation that pulled on our heart strings. We wanted to have a child to call our own and in that moment it just seemed like what we thought was our answer and what we thought was something that could fill that empty void in our hearts was this. So, we became sponsors that night of a handsome little 1 year old named Ander from Peru. He had gorgeous, thick, black hair and big brown eyes. He was a cute little fella and we done exactly what they encouraged us to do. We called him our own. We prayed for him. We wrote him letters and sent him pictures. His Mom wrote us letters and sent us pictures as well. We called him our boy. We thought we had filled that empty hole in our hearts.

One day in prayer, I was holding Ander’s photo and praying for his protection and hoping that one day I could meet him and I felt the Holy Ghost speak something into my heart. “He is your Ishmael.” My heart broke into a million pieces as I realized that God promised me my own. Not someone else’s. My heart became convicted for trying to take matters into my own hands. I thought I believed God’s promise to me but I was not letting Him have complete control over my heart’s desire.

God promised Abraham and Sarah a baby of their own. Sarah got tired of waiting and thought she could help God out by speeding up the promise. Instead, they had Ishmael. The beauty of this story though is that God did not let that keep Him from fulfilling His true promise to them. In His timing, they had their promised child, Isaac.

God does not let our Ishmael experiences hinder His true will for our lives.

Hebrews 6:15 is speaking of Abraham when it says,

And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

I had to learn to patiently endure. Looking back now, I am so thankful that God did not allow me trying to control the situation hinder Him from doing what He promised. I do wonder now at times if I would have kept my hands out of it and let Him work it if I could have received my promise sooner. But God knew exactly what I needed and when I needed it and after 6 years, we obtained our promise! God IS Faithful to His Promises! It’s up to us to respond correctly in the time of waiting.

There’s so many times in a season of waiting in life that we try to get ahead of God and we try to put our hands in it and work it out, but all we’re doing is getting Ishmaels and it’s not the real promise that God had for us.

We make a mess of it by trying to get it the way we want it to be and the way we think it should be when God has a completely different plan. There’s sometimes we make a mess of things and we have our Ishmael experinces but God still doesn’t hold those against us. He’s like, “I still do have a promise that I’m gonna fulfill to you, I’ve got an Isaac for you,” basically. Sometimes we like to get our hands it in and we just make a mess of it. But in our messy situations, God has a very specific way to let us know just at the right time that He has not forgotten about us.

If you’re in a waiting period: it is worth every tear you ever cry, it is worth every year you have to wait, and it is worth every prayer you have to pray. The pain through the waiting does not compare to the peace after the promise. If you’re in a waiting season, you’ve got to depend on God. That’s the only way you’re gonna make it through.