The appointed time

"The plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations” (Ps 33:11).

But I must be prepared to wait on God’s timing. His timing is precise, for He does things “at the very time” He has set. It is not for me to know His timing, and in fact I cannot know it – I must wait for it.

I was thinking of Abraham and Sarah this morning and thought - if God had told Abraham that he would have to wait thirty years before holding his promised child in his arms, his heart might have failed him. So God, as an act of His gracious love, hid from Abraham the number of weary years he would be required to wait. Only as the time was approaching did God reveal His promise: “At the appointed time next year….Sarah will have a son” (Gen 18:14).

This morning the Lord spoke to me ~ take heart, Courtney, when I require you to wait. I will not disappoint you. I will never be even five minutes behind “the appointed time”. And soon “your grief will turn to joy” (John 16:20)

Michael & I are now in the true stages of waiting. Our application packet (over 40 pages long) was mailed out to the Houston office on Monday - we FINALLY got it all together! Now, we just have to wait (again) to hear back from teh agency with the approval. Once approved, there are still plenty of steps left to complete as well as training. Interestingly enough, Dennis (our intial case worker) called me on Monday to follow up, since he hadn't received our package. We called him back and he was excited to hear that we had sent the packet in the mail that day. He told us that he had decided to keep us in the Houston office, versus the Woodlands office, due to the fact that the Woodlands office was down to just one case worker and his office has 7 case workers. He said that he felt strongly about keeping us with his group, as the process would move much more quickly and he really wanted to stay involved with us. That was very comforting to hear.

It's all about waiting, being patient, being still, and trusting in the Lord. It is completely out of our hands. We have done what we needed to do and we trust that the Lord will turn our grief into joy at just the appointed time!