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The Prayer That Must Wait

Resting in Love

I have asked the Lord for a birthday present each year for almost twenty years now. As my November birthday approaches, I begin the familiar discernment process of seeking God’s face. I want to be certain I want what Jesus wants for me—not without His permission, nor spoiled with greed or selfishness, and most certainly not apart from the Spirit’s wisdom. After making the request I wait in anticipation to see how He will fulfill the request we made together.

In the first and second years of this tradition, the Lord presented me with His surprise answer to my birthday prayer right away—within a day of the request. But in the third year…

It was almost my birthday (2003)! In preparation for asking the Lord for a birthday gift, I began discerning before Him where I was and what I needed. An honest evaluation revealed that my life was good. My husband was good and so was his job. My marriage was good. The sensational seven? Good. I knew I was doing a good job at what God had called me to do. I had an adequate home and the blueprints for our new home were just being completed. Our family would very likely be moving in the next year. So good. Most importantly, I knew that the Lord is ever Good. I knew He loved me and I loved Him. 

But if my life was so good, why was I so tired of it? Of late I was tired all the time. I had never been so tired. My last thought when I went to bed was, “Lord, I’m glad I don’t have to face tomorrow yet; I have a whole night until it begins,” and my first thought on waking was, “How can I face this day?” Inside, where no one could see, silent tears were rusting my soul. 

Part of my problem was our home of twenty years. Once charmingly situated in small-town Bixby, Oklahoma, it was now enveloped in hateful commerce. The depressing view from my front windows consisted of heavy four-lane traffic. The noise was so deafening, we couldn’t open the windows. A smattering of trash and an assortment of gopher mounds decorated the front lawn. The litter was deposited daily by passing motorists and collected by the children and me when I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. The gopher mounds were mowed down with the grass once a week and replaced by the next morning. Longing to see something pretty, I planted flowers. But our dogs dug them up. 

Piles of bricks and brick-moving equipment occupied the oily, muddy lot next door, wrapping into a portion of the backyard. Promptly at 4:00 a.m., the crew began to load brick pallets for daily shipment. The Mack engines fired, and the headlights pierced our bedroom windows. 

All of this together bore down on me. My artist’s soul was longing for beauty, but there was no oasis upon which to rest my gaze. 

One November afternoon as I was out for a walk, I thought to myself, “I feel like I am wearing a backpack filled with the bricks next door. My life is too heavy for me. If someone would just take a few bricks out of my backpack, I could stand up straight.” And there was my birthday request. I knew because the Holy Spirit immediately confirmed it. 

So, in the next breath, I asked, “Lord, will you take some of the bricks out of my backpack, so I can stand up straight?” Though I had the firm conviction that the Lord was leading me to ask, truthfully, I couldn’t imagine how even He could help me. I was that depleted.

That November I eagerly, desperately waited for the lightening of my load, the miracle of strength to go on. A week passed, a month, two, three, and nothing changed. In the past, the Lord had answered my requests immediately. But this time there was no answer. 

Eventually, the green of buds and shoots announced spring. Nothing had changed. The day’s offering of trash was blowing across the lawn, the traffic was particularly deafening, and the brickyard especially oily and muddy. In that moment I reached a breaking point. “Lord, I can’t go on! I asked You to lighten my load. Why have You forgotten me?” Without a moment’s pause, the Lord replied. “Some gifts take an entire year to give!” He was smiling as He said it, even suppressing a giggle. Does God laugh? He did then. 

Somehow His explanation sparked hope. I mentally calculated the months that would complete the full year. There were eight months until my next birthday. I determined that if God helped me, I could do almost anything for eight months, so I set my gaze and I plodded on. 

By the second week of November 2003, our new house was finished, and we had moved. This in itself was a relief, but I was still internally dull with increasing pain in my joints and muscles. I felt adrift in a dense fog. 

In exasperation and with my husband’s strong encouragement, I went to see our family doctor. After listening quietly, he suggested that I was suffering from fibromyalgia (I already suspected this from a previous diagnosis) and depression, and since the research to date found antidepressants to be of benefit to both, he suggested I might try one. 

I was aggravated. I didn’t need far-fetched ideas about my mental health, and I certainly didn’t need an antidepressant. The very idea! I said something rather kinder to my doctor, who was also a family friend. He countered that I was prejudiced against anti-depression medication. Was I? He assured me that I wouldn’t have to take much to be able to tell if it would help. So grudgingly I filled the prescription and began with half a tablet the next morning. 

I will never forget the surprise breakthrough about two weeks later. The children were gathered in the kitchen and I was rocking in the red rocker when one of them said something funny—and I laughed aloud. Someone commented incredulously, “Mom, did you just laugh?” I thought for a moment. When was the last time I had laughed? I couldn’t even remember. I replied, “I think I did!” 

With a start, I realized that the year was over, and I had received the final installment of my birthday present. Just as the Lord had said, it had taken a whole year for us to build and move. It had taken a whole year of tolerating oppression and pain to humble myself and ask for help. It had taken a whole year to admit that I was suffering from depression. The Lord’s gift had been well worth the wait. How I praised Him in that moment.

Now I wait patiently, confidently without having to be reminded to wait (most of the time) and am content. Those who desire sweeter, deeper conversations with the Father must learn to rest in trust—trust in His character, wisdom, sovereignty, will, and timing. But there is more! After many years of persevering through, I now know that some gifts take longer than a year to give—some take a lifetime. Some are even sealed for future generations. That means that people I may never know on earth will receive the answers to my prayers. Glory! Meditating on the heady responsibility and power of the waiting in prayer could change the way we pray! As we wait for the answer to our prayers, we have the luxury of resting in Love, and Love is a Person.