This past weekend, at our women’s retreat, I shared a personal story* about a long season of waiting — when prayers felt unanswered and nothing seemed to be moving forward.
If you’re in a place where you’re trying to trust God but don’t understand what He’s doing, this is for you.
It was a quiet evening at our home in Texas when the phone call finally came. We had been hopeful after my husband’s strong interview for a police chief position, and honestly, everything looked promising.
In fact, our plans had already started toward the move — looking at rentals, researching colleges for my son, and watching churches online. I was emotionally packing before anything was official.
But after my husband answered the phone, I could tell from his face before he even said the words…
The answer was no.
At first, we weren’t discouraged. We’d walked this road before — the interviews, the hope, the letdown — so we told ourselves, okay… it’s just not that city.
And when another job listing came up, we started the whole process again.
Through it all, here is something I learned about marriage:
Sometimes when God writes a chapter for your spouse…
you end up living it too.
It was also during that long job search that our family experienced deep loss. My mother passed, and then he lost both of his parents unexpectedly. Instead of stepping into a new chapter, we stayed right where we were and tried to make sense of what God was doing.
As we kept walking through that season of waiting, we carried different weights: my husband carried the pressure of the application processes and interviews, and I held onto the anticipation, preparation and emotional investment of what might be.
Every time a door closed, it hurt in a way we didn’t expect. Not just because it was disappointing — but because it stirred up questions we didn’t want to admit.
We kept telling ourselves that God would be faithful… yet deep down—we were still holding tightly to the path that seemed right to us. We believed He was good — but we also believed our plan made sense.
And when things make sense to us, we don’t realize how tightly we’re holding onto them.
There finally came a point when I realized my prayers all sounded the same: I kept asking God to give my husband a Chief position. I kept asking Him to open the door that, in my mind, was clearly the right one.
You see, I wanted to trust God… but I also wanted to help Him choose the outcome.
Then one day, I read this passage in Lamentations:
“The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
I’ll be honest — I didn’t want to wait quietly. I wanted faster solutions. But slowly, over time, something shifted in my heart and I found myself praying differently:
“Lord, if this isn’t what You have for us, please close the door tightly — and help us to be at peace right where we are.”
And when I prayed it, I knew I meant every word.
Not that it was an easy prayer—it wasn’t—because I knew it meant loosening my grip on control and letting go of the plan I had convinced myself was best.
God helped me realize that having to wait wasn’t that He was withholding something from us. It was in the wait where He was doing something in us.
I wasn’t just learning to trust His plan. I was learning to trust who He is.
Then in the fall of 2024, the opportunity came we never considered or predicted:
Topeka, Kansas.
And when it did, something was different.
Not just the opportunity, but also in my husband and myself.
Looking back now, I can see what I couldn’t see then:
God hadn’t been ignoring our prayers. He had been preparing us.
He kept us in Texas when we needed time to grieve,
but He also loosened our grip on a future we designed.
He showed us that instead of resting in our plan… we needed to rest in Him.
I thought when the job finally came, that would show God’s faithfulness to us.
Instead, I learned His faithfulness had been sustaining us the entire time we’d been waiting.
I remember a January morning last year, after we had finally settled in. My husband was in his new role as chief of TPD, and my son had started college classes. I sat in the living room with a cup of coffee, gazing at the snow outside the big picture window.
I found myself thinking — how differently everything had unfolded — how we were living in a city God chose for us, and in His timing.
And in that still moment, I realized I had peace.
While we were making our plans, God had been far ahead of us—
preparing something better —
weaving together details and relationships we never could have created ourselves.
God didn’t just move our address.
He moved my trust from understanding what He was doing…
to trusting who He is.
Some of you may be in a waiting season right now. You’ve prayed and been faithful, and yet God feels silent. I want you to know this:
God is not absent in your waiting.
Sometimes this is where He does His deepest work in us —
because what feels like a delay to you may actually be His preparation.
Right before those verses in Lamentations?
There’s another promise. A quiet one. But a powerful one.
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness… therefore I will hope in Him.”
So if you’re waiting today — for direction, for healing, for hope — take heart.
The God who met me in the waiting is the same God who will meet you in yours.
The God whose mercies never end is the God who stands with you in the middle of the silence and the unanswered.
He is steady when life is uncertain.
He is faithful when the path is unclear.
And He is working right now in ways you cannot yet see.
So yes — you can hope in Him.
Great is His faithfulness – not only in my story, but yours as well.
*Personal testimony given at the “Make New” Fellowship Bible Church Women’s Retreat, April 18, 2026
