Originally published Tuesday, 10 September 2013.
There certainly have been times in my life when I found that if I asked something of God, it happened almost immediately.
I can recall being in high school (and just starting to feel drawn to God) and trying to figure out how to pay for college. I’d always made straight A’s, taken some of the hardest classes, and was set to graduate in the top 10 of my class. I’d always assumed that those sorts of things would ensure you plenty of scholarships. But as my senior year stretched on, I still had to find a way to come up with about $10,000 a year.
At some point, I realized (only through the grace of the Holy Spirit) that I hadn’t put this request before God. Somehow, when I wasn’t even really a Christian or reading a Bible, I knew that part of following God was letting go of control and letting him work. So, I stood in my parents’ bathroom and prayed that God would help me in this area. As soon as I finished praying, the phone rang and the voice on the other line told me that I’d been selected to receive their scholarship. And over the next few weeks and months, enough scholarships came in to cover my entire freshman year.
Like I said, that was early on in my burgeoning relationship with the Lord.
Since then, he still answers my prayers, but I have noticed he trusts me to wait a little bit longer. And in that waiting, there are often so many new lessons that he teaches me.
There was the time when I had to wait to find a spouse. But in the waiting, God called me to pray boldly and expect him to answer. And within months of beginning those prayers and following where I thought he was leading, God introduced me to the man who would, just a year later, become my husband. Through that, I saw God’s faithfulness and realized how much he loves to give us more than we even asked or expected—how he goes above and beyond in lavish love.
There was the time when, once my husband and I were married, we found ourselves living month to month on a freelance gig while he finished up school. We spent months praying for a full-time job because any month now, my freelance job could dry up. But God called us to wait, and each month, he extended that job a few more weeks, until by the end of it, he had taken care of us for a year and a half on that temporary job before delivering us a full-time job for my husband that started the week before my freelance one officially ended. It was marvelous to see that, against all odds, in “this” kind of economy, God would take care of us and do what seemed impossible. He took such good care of us that it still awes me to this day.
Then there was the time when my husband and I decided we wanted to have a child…
I’ll pick up with the rest of this post later in a couple of days (because otherwise it would be way too long!). So until then: To be continued…
Carmen writes the blog, Life Blessons, which provides an intimate look into her life as a twentysomething woman as she details her experiences learning how to live out her faith, enjoy the simple things in life and be the woman God created to her to be. Along the way, she shares the blessings and lessons that are a part of this journey, the things she likes to call her "blessons."
Feel free to learn more at her blog, Life Blessons.
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