Fire By Night

It’s been 19 days since we first heard about our new little baby boy. It only took us 1 day to decide “Yes!”, we wanted to make this boy our own, and thus told our adoption agency we wanted to move forward with him. Let’s bring this little one home!

Finally, our time had arrived! After all the waiting and all the steps, we had finally gotten to the good part. The ship was now moving… or so I thought.

Yet, here we are, over 2 weeks later, and what I thought would be a very quick jump off the starting block has seemed to turn into simply, “On your mark, get set…”

As we continue to wait much longer than expected for our 2nd child, I must daily fight the temptation to feel anxious, frustrated, disappointed. Each day passed seems like a counted failure, having not produced the news of our other child. The days drag on, one after the other, and still no word. Everything sits stagnant. Nothing to do but wait.

I keep fighting it… Be anxious for nothing.

In the midst of my self-centered, narrow vision of my own small life, God breaks in with a beam of light. He gently drops a mustard seed of hope into my day-dream. When my eyes seem to be squinting the tightest, my vision the narrowest, God breaks in and somehow manages to lift my gaze a little higher. He gives me the imagery of the Israelites as they are traveling through the wilderness in search of their promised land.

Numbers 9:15-18- “Now on the day that the tabernacle was erected the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and in the evening it was like the appearance of fire over the tabernacle, until morning… Whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp. At the command of the Lord the sons of Israel would set out, and at the command of the Lord they would camp; as long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped.”

They were completely dependent upon the Lord’s leading. Did they ever question His timing? His judgment? Lucky for them, they had the luxury of actually seeing a physical cloud and fire to add to their confidence in following the Lord’s leading, but do His sheep not know His voice? And is He not the same God today as He was then? Does He not still lead, still direct His people?

In His goodness, He is in every moment of my life. Every detail. And He sees so very far ahead. He has gone before me, and He goes after me. He sees the beginning and the end. Am I trusting, daily, the hands that are leading me? In every step of this process, He desires to be in it with me. By Him and for Him and through Him, is everything.

He doesn’t demand, yet instead invites me. What will I do with my trials? I want to choose not to walk them alone on my own strength, but to intentionally ask Him to be in all of it with me. To trust in Him. To let Him lead.

I will be anxious for nothing. He has been and always will be my cloud by day and my fire by night.

~Jennifer