We adopted our youngest daughter in 2008. She came home when she was just three months old. Our three older children were all supportive of adding to the family. My oldest, who had already spread his wings and left the nest, asked, “What took so long?” when we approached him about adopting Andreya. I don’t know what took us so long. But when the time came for her to be part of our family, it was perfect.

I always thought I’d be a younger mother until God gave us Andreya. Our three older children were born when my husband and I were in our 20s. I was 43 when the nurse placed her in my arms. I didn’t wonder if I could do it again. Nor was I fearful about how we would afford raising another child. We just knew Andreya was ours as much as our first three were. It took so long! But the wait was worth it.

The road to planting churches

The roads that lead us to where God has something waiting for us can be long and complicated. When we first moved to Africa, I had no idea we would end up planting churches in many different nations. Our first assignment had us serving in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). We served there for only a few years before we planted a church in Burundi.

I felt we had arrived when we finally received permission to work in Burundi and plant our first church. (The story is long; if you want to read more, you can read our book No Retreat – No Regrets.) I assumed that Burundi would be my final resting place, until it wasn’t. Nine years after the church was planted, we began planting churches in other nations.

Why it took so long to learn

To say that our journey has been exhausting is misleading. It’s been much more than exhausting. Moving from nation to nation pulls every ounce of energy from you. Even the energy you thought you didn’t have is taken away when you relocate to foreign lands. Learning languages, cultures, and customs alone is enough to overwhelm anyone.

But God chose us for this life, and day by day He has led us. Sometimes, often in fact, He has led us moment by moment. We’ve heard His instruction one step at a time. In our earlier years, it was frustrating to be led this way. I had the natural tendency many have to set roots down and nest. But that was not meant to be, at least at the time. It appeared that every time I was settling and nesting, we had to move. I guess I’m a slow learner because it took several moves before I understood that nesting for me was meant to be put on the back burner. I wonder now why it took me so long to learn that lesson.

Temper tantrums and couches

I had my temper tantrums about this. Once, in Lusaka, Zambia, we had just moved into a house we had rented after moving from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. You can understand that I was aching to be in a home of our own after weeks of being in limbo, moving from one guest house to another.

The house we rented was interesting. Three or four color schemes were running throughout. In the main bathroom off our bedroom, there were three different colored tiles. The sink was one color, the floor another, and the walls and floor (you guessed it) another. It was easy to feel dizzy walking around the house. But finally, we had a place to call home. I didn’t care if the tiles didn’t match.

We had no furniture and were desperate to find a couch to sit on. It took a few weeks to find something we could afford, but the day finally came when the long-awaited couch arrived. It was old, a faded green color (I’d say “puke” color but that might put someone off 🤣) and wobbly. The moment it was set in the house, it fell to pieces.

Seeing the couch, broken and useless, was my breaking point. I lost my cookies and cried. Not a demure sniffly cry, but an all-out ugly cry. It was the kind of cry that makes one hiccup. Jamie, not used to this behavior coming from me, awkwardly tried to comfort me and wondered what to do. We managed to fix the couch quickly and even recover the unfortunately-colored cushions to a more palatable dark blue.

But I wondered why everything took so long. I wasted a lot of energy wondering.

From point A to point B

As the years have passed, we have come to understand that God sees time differently. He won’t always (dare I say rarely) take us from point A to point B on the fastest route. He takes us where we need to go and where we’ll meet others along the way whom He has destined for us to meet.

I will go so far as to say that God is not only interested in those He sends us to, but also has our best interests at heart. It would be foolish to think otherwise. God doesn’t just use His people. He places them where they need to be at any given moment, not only for the good of those He sent them to, but also for their good.

No wonder it took so long

By the time our journey took us to Malawi, we had moved many times. But had we not taken the road we took at the time, I wonder if we would have found Andreya. Along the road to her, churches were planted, our older children grew, and we matured in ways that prepared us for an interracial adoption.

No wonder it took so long. Had we come early or late, we would have missed Andreya.

Lesson learned? To go where God has destined us to go means we need hearts that are ready to follow the path He has chosen for us. There’s more to the journey than meets the eye.

And, it’s never a straightforward road.

When Andreya was barely a year old, our family took a vacation driving up the West Coast of the USA (highly recommend). We didn’t stay in fancy hotels or eat in high-end restaurants. We drove up the coast along the ocean. The roads on the coast led us to beautiful beaches, quaint one-of-a-kind shops, and our family bonded over hours of trying to keep Andreya from crying. Tom discovered she loved music during this trip. From then until now, the music hasn’t stopped playing in Andreya’s room.

Elijah, the exhausted prophet

God hears our prayers, but did you know that we have to be willing to listen to Him to get His answer? I’ve found that I am, many times, so busy figuring out how God is going to work that I can miss His voice.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah had just come from a significant victory (see 1 Kings 18), where he defeated all the 450 prophets of Baal and Asherah. God came through powerfully, defeating all who refused to obey Him. But Elijah, after this great mountaintop victory where all the false prophets were put to shame, ran away.

It seems like Elijah, at this time, was spent. He was exhausted and struggled to hear God’s voice, much like me, crying over the couch on a much smaller scale, of course. Elijah was wondering why. Why was he being chased after God had demonstrated His power? He was so tired, he wanted to give up.

So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah: “May the gods strike me and even kill me if by this time tomorrow I have not killed you just as you killed them.”

Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there. Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”

1 Kings 19:2-4 NLT

Why give up?

Elijah had been on a lifelong journey of obeying God. He had, up to this point, seen some fantastic things: prophesying a prolonged drought (see 1 Kings 17:1), being fed by ravens (see 1 Kings 17:4), providing for the widow of Zarepath (see 1 Kings 17:13-16), and raising a widow’s son from the dead (see 1 Kings 17:22,23). Why would he, after seeing all these miracles, want to give up?

I’ve observed in the Bible and my own life that, after periods of prolonged activity, we often face periods of exhaustion, like Elijah. They happen unannounced, and God takes pains to stand us on our feet and back on track. In the case of Elijah, He had to speak in a way that Elijah could listen.

“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

1 Kings 19:11-13 NLT

For whatever reason, Elijah couldn’t hear God in the storm, the earthquake, or the fire. God spoke to him quietly, and when He did, He asked, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” In other words, God was asking, “Why are you here, wasting your time, instead of following the path I’ve set before you?” God had more for Elijah to do than sit in the wilderness and feel sorry for himself.

Elijah’s journey was bigger than he was. This is where we often get off track, when we think that everything is about us. We struggle to hear God’s voice in the face of the storms, earthquakes, and fires we’re living through.

But God is bigger. He is busy intersecting lives and destinies. After Elijah heard God’s voice, he went and anointed a king and crossed paths with a man named Elisha. Elisha ended up being Elijah’s successor and saw double the miracles of his predecessor.

What took so long had something to do with being ready

What took so long for Elijah to cross paths with Elisha? Why did he have to live through what he did? I’m not sure, but likely it had something to do with Elisha being ready to follow Elijah. He wasn’t ready until he was. So God led Elijah on a road that prepared him as well to meet and then mentor Elisha.

Where are you on your journey? Are you in a time of victory? Or, like Elijah (and me looking at that awful couch), struggling to hear God’s voice? Wherever you are, God is there, and if you can focus, He will speak to you and show you the way forward. Elisha may be waiting around the corner.

Reading:

1 Kings 17 – 19

Psalm 32

Journal prompt:

Consider the life of Elijah and the miracles he saw. Why do you think he suddenly lost courage when Jezebel threatened him? What can you learn from this example of Elijah’s life and apply to your own?