A wife sits in the waiting room praying that her husband will make it out of surgery in good shape. A family waits for news of a daughter that has gone missing. News of great financial loss has rocked a family and they wonder if they will be able to make it. The church waits for new direction that God will provide to deal with the storms of difficulty in their fellowship. These are dark times in our lives...times when the world seems to go gray and the things we used to be so sure of seem a little less certain and a little more confusing.
Here's a word of encouragement from scripture. Isaiah 26:3-4 says "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock."
The same God who calmed stormy waves is able to speak peace and calm into our own hearts and minds. We are able to trust that he knows what he is doing because he is God! When Our hope rests on him he gives us his peace.
So what are we to do in the meantime? What do we do while we wait for the answers to come? May I suggest that there are three things that will help a person through the dark and the storms of their life. The first is to find our new normal. When the circumstances in life change, the fact of the matter is that we are now going to have a new "normal". Perhaps The new normal means a change in our schedule or a change in our budget or a change in our relationships. In some cases it may even mean laying aside our former hopes and dreams and finding new ones. No matter how we look at it, life changes and it is necessary for us to adapt.
The second challenge is that of being "okay" with our new normal. Often times, when it finally does settle in that things are going to be different, our hearts may still be unsettled and even angry at the fact that things have to change. This will be one of the places where a person needs to pray that God will help them accept things for the way they are instead of wishing and hoping for things that cannot be. It is also one of the key moments where we learn to rely on the love and friendship of those around us. Our family, friends, and church family will remind us of the many ways in which God reaches out to bless us.
The third challenge is to function in the new normal. Not only are we learning new skills and learning a new way of doing things but we are also learning to find joy in the new adventure in which God has placed us. Precious are the testimonies of those who have endured great hardship and emerged on the other side better for the experience, and who would say that if they had to do it all over again they would keep things just as they are. There are some things that God desires to show us that we could never see outside of the hardship we must endure.
In the darkness we wait, but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint. Teach us, Lord, to wait on you.