Sabbath Devotional :: Waiting on the Lord

Woman Waiting for Her House to Grow, by Caitlin Connolly

We knew exactly where we were going.

When my husband and I were newly married, we had our whole life mapped out. I felt like I had known my own course from an early age, but we based our plans for my husband’s career on a very specific promise in his Patriarchal blessing. He had a work to do, and in order to accomplish that work, he would need to have a Ph.D. We were sure we knew what God expected of us.

It would be a long road. We already had three little ones by the time James (my husband) completed his Master’s degree in International Relations at BYU and started a Ph.D. program at the University of Utah. I was teaching at BYU, and so we moved to Pleasant Grove, Utah to split the difference of our respective travel times. He was commuting, working full-time, taking a heavy course load, teaching (as part of an assistantship), serving as Elder’s Quorum president, and being an incredible, supportive husband and a very involved daddy.

Several years later, we had just had our fifth child and James had completed all his course work and all but one of his comprehensive exams when he started experiencing some very troublesome problems with his eyes. Eventually he was diagnosed with keratoconus — a condition that changes the shape of the cornea and results in blurry and/or double vision and extreme light sensitivity. Around the same time, he started experiencing severe dryness in his eyes, mouth, and nose and was diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disorder called Sjogren’s Syndrome.

The typical first line treatment for keratoconus are special hard contact lenses that hold the cornea in place. But because of the excessive dryness of James’s eyes due to the Sjogren’s, he could not accommodate those lenses. What followed was a prolonged series of experimental attempts to increase the moisture in his eyes — ointments, eyedrops, medications, steam, even the eventual cauterization of his tear ducts. But nothing helped, and meanwhile his vision became worse and worse until he could no longer do what was required of him at work and also the necessary reading and writing to complete his comprehensive examinations and dissertation. And the keratoconus advanced to the point that it started scarring both corneas, and suddenly he was at risk of losing his eyesight all together.

And so he was forced to step away from his Ph.D. program. After so much work and so close to being done. And he was put on the schedule for a corneal transplant. He would need to have transplants in both eyes, but they would do them one at a time because the risk of rejection (which would result in blindness) is so high for this type of surgery.

His department at the University of Utah awarded him a second Master’s degree for the work he had completed, and with great kindness expressed the hope that he would be able to come back at some point and complete the Ph.D. We all knew that that was unlikely. The necessary surgeries and subsequent recoveries would take years.

And suddenly that wide open road leading to what we thought was James’ promised land was blocked, seemingly for good. Not only were his dreams shattered, but his divine destiny appeared to have been thwarted.

Thankfully, he had a great job that he loved — working for the Church as a researcher — and his managers and co-workers were very accommodating as he underwent first one corneal transplant, and then, a year and a half later, the second. Both were successful and saved his eyesight. But he was still dealing with the effects of Sjogren’s and, probably for the rest of his life, would have a limited number of hours a day that he could actively use his eyes.

It was at about this time that in my personal scripture study I somehow stumbled on Jeremiah 29. Though I love Isaiah, the psalms, and many of the wonderful stories that spoke to me so powerfully as a child (Moses parting the Red Sea; Joseph and his multi-colored coat; David and Goliath; Daniel in the den of lions; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace . . .), I didn’t often find myself in the pages of the Old Testament in those days. But one day I turned to Jeremiah 29.

First a little historical background. Chapter 29 is a letter written by the prophet Jeremiah in 596 BC to the Jews who had been taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar and carried out of their own land into Babylon. It’s an interesting chapter with universal applicability because, in essence, it is God’s counsel to those for whom life has not turned out exactly as they’d hoped. And, that, of course, is all of us.

So what does God, through his prophet, say to these people? What does he tell them to do? In verses 5-6, he says:

“Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husband, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.”

So, in other words, he tells them to settle in and get on with things!

What should we do when life doesn’t go the way we’d planned? Build houses, plant gardens, eat the fruit thereof, bear children, and have joy in all of it.

And why?

“. . . that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.”

We all know people who, because of how they’ve chosen to respond to adversity, are diminished. They become angry, bitter, despairing, or vindictive. We also all know people who, again, because of how they’ve chosen to react to hard things, have been increased — in their faith, in their ability to love and to empathize and to serve, in their capacity for joy.

In verse 7, the Lord counsels the people to “seek the peace” of the city where they found themselves captives. And why? “For in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”

If we can seek peace, create peace, hold peace, then we will be blessed with that same peace, no matter our circumstances.

And then, in verse 11, God reassures us of his tremendous, unalterable love.

When life doesn’t turn out the way we’d hoped, sometimes our tendency is to want to shake our fist at the heavens. “Why is this happening to me? Are you angry with me? Are you ignoring me? Do you not really love me? Are you trying to punish me?” Because, frankly, that’s how it sometimes feels.

But God puts all these fears to rest:

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.”

God knows how he feels about us, his children — the workmanship of his own hands. He will not forget nor forsake us. We are graven in the palms of his hands. He has plans for us — plans to prosper and not to injure us. God desires nothing but our happiness. His whole purpose is to exalt us. His very clear mission statement is found in Moses 1:39: “For behold, this is my work and my glory — to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

Moving forward to verse 14, the Lord tells his people that he will deliver them from bondage: “And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations.”

What a glorious promise! But, wait. Listen to his timetable: “For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place” (verse 10).

Don’t worry, says the Lord. I will deliver you. But, uh, it won’t be for seventy years. Which means that . . . well . . . some of you will be dead.

Most of these people would not live to see their deliverance. The hope for them, then, was not a hope for immediate delivery, but for eventual delivery, for ultimate delivery.

Often our afflictions are not lifted, no matter how great our faith. Taking away all or even most of our challenges would thwart the very purposes of mortality. Our hope too, then, is in the ultimate deliverance from all our sorrows and afflictions: “For God shall wipe away all tears.” (Revelation 21:4) And that hope, of course, comes through Christ, our Savior.

And so we must learn to wait upon the Lord — which is one of the hardest and most beautiful devotions we can perform. It is the ultimate manifestation of trust and faith. Wondrously, we can find peace and even joy in the waiting.

Coming back now to my husband, James. When the road he thought he was to follow was suddenly blocked, he took a different road — a road that has brought him tremendous joy and fulfillment. And through it all, he was increased, and not diminished.

And just a few weeks ago, at age 55, decades after he encountered that road block that seemingly changed the entire course of his life, he was given a new opportunity at work — an opportunity that in a remarkable and very literal way was a fulfilment of that promise in his Patriarchal blessing that first set us off on that other path — the one we thought we were supposed to be on, the one that might have taken us to a very different place than the one where God wanted and needed us to be.

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)