Despair is the word I used in my journal to describe my feelings about missing Brendan and expecting government bureaucracy to cooperate with our plans to be reunited for an April wedding. I woke up every morning feeling sad with my heart achy and restless for him. I watched Brendan’s eyes show the same despair every time I talked with him.
I prayed feverishly for God to intervene, to make me patient, to ease the pain in my aching heart and to give me a bigger perspective. After all, Brendan and I would have our whole lives together; I had waited this long, what was a few more months…or gulp, a couple of years?
WAIT! My viewpoint was that I had ALREADY waited this long to have Brendan in my life, why did I have to wait longer?? Couldn’t I figure out something that didn’t have to do with waiting? Maybe I should just go to Australia and marry him there even if it meant having to come home again without my husband. Couldn’t I have a guarantee that all the paperwork would miraculously be whisked to the top of whatever million applicant file it was in, stamped immediately and we’d call it good? Truth is, life just doesn’t work that way. But I asked God anyway and apparently, he does work that way.
God used the waiting time to show me how afraid of authority I still was. The unreasonable, incompetent government was in complete control over my future is how I saw it, but really God wanted me to see that HE was in control, even over the immensely huge and impersonal institution of the government. He showed me how situations in my past had caused this fear and distrust of authority and how it had affected my life over the years. He wanted me to be free. He wanted me to believe that he could and would do whatever good he planned for me even when it looked like I was helpless. He also taught me that one step at a time would get me where I needed to be and not to fret about the future, the past and what didn’t seem to be happening.
I also felt that the whole situation and the process of waiting for a miracle wasn’t just about us–it was to create a miracle for others to witness when they heard our story. Carol reminded me that God was giving us a testimony in our story, which is exactly what we had prayed for! We wanted others to be encouraged by what we were going through. And in the meantime, I started to learn how to live one day at a time.
Laura Bennet - Author 