Waiting On God
Over the past few weeks and months, not being in Haiti and not seeing the kids has gotten even more difficult, especially as it continues to appear that a reunion is not even on the horizon. Jess and I don't take about it much, and our kids still occasionally bring up Haiti, but the void that it left and the quickness with which we exited the country made the transition back to America that much more difficult and that much more undefined.
Because of our incredible employees, All Things New continues to exist and thrive even to the point that a couple of our kids will graduate from high school soon. An incredible feat.
At the same time, this transition has begun to show me some things about what it means to wait. I called the blog "Waiting on God," but it is not exactly that. It's more being content with where GOD has you.
I remember when we first moved to Haiti and we were very much ready to turn All Things New into a creche, an orphanage where kids could be adopted. Very early on, however, we noticed something.
Kids in orphanages where adoptions occurred seemed to always be in a state of waiting.
I want to clarify that this blog is in no way disparaging to orphanages in Haiti where adoptions happen, this is just an observation that we made.
There was always this idea that the kids were waiting for their "real lives" to happen and that in the mean time they were preparing for that life without living their current life. They were learning English, talking to their adoptive parents weekly, and doing everything in preparation of their hopefully upcoming adoption.
It was difficult to watch, and especially as some of those adoptions never happened and the kids waited year after year without getting to move into that new life. We could not do it.
The crazy thing is that I have often found in myself and seen in others that same type of "Waiting on God."
What I mean is that we can get in this position in our life where we continually look forward to what is happening next. We wait for our next job, retirement, graduation, to find a spouse, to have kids, and sometimes we even wait just so we can figure out what we are waiting for.
It has been easy to do get into that pattern with Haiti. While we know we will never be in Haiti like we were prior to 2020, there is still an aspect of waiting just to be able to see our kids and our employees.
Also, waiting done in the right way is not a bad thing. In fact, waiting is one aspect of hope. Waiting done in the wrong way, however, can render you completely useless to everyone, including GOD.
The thing about waiting is that we are not even promised the next second much less tomorrow. All that we have is right now, right now to live for and be in the presence of GOD.
You have right now to share the Gospel with your best friend.
You have right now to share the Gospel with your children.
You have right now to glorify GOD and to live for Him.
It is so easy to waste our lives on so many things. Materialistic things like money, power, jobs, family, fun, etc. can easily rob us of our joy in Christ, but so can waiting.
GOD truly may have something different for your life and He is almost definitely preparing you for something that you are not doing right now. While He is doing that, however, we are not called to simply wait...We are called to live.
When I was in high school, a memory verse that I hid in my heart and that has never left me even for a second is this:
"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is." - Ephesians 5:15-17
Do I always live this way? No. But what I do remember is that Waiting on God is an active thing. While GOD is preparing us for something new, He is also calling us to live for Him right now because the days are evil and tomorrow is not promised to us.