I lived on the North Carolina coast in a small rural tourist dependent town and had grown weary of waiting on God for change in my life. There was good money to be made during the season, but when it ended most often that money was needed to survive until the season started over again the next year. I loved living near the water, but without a significant income for nearly 15 years, I decided for many reasons it was time for my life to change. I wasn’t sure what that change would look like, what it would be or where it would lead, but I was committed to not remaining the same for the remainder of my life.
I walked away from a dead end job that I had had for 5 years in this painful economy. It was going nowhere, was without potential and only afforded me to tread water financially. I was never going to be rich or have any retirement from it. In so many ways I wanted my life to be different and so desperately wanted what had always been to not always be! I did not want my life to continue as it had been for the last 15 years with no hope of significant change.
So, I decided to try the big city, the big city of Atlanta with the hope of changing the course of my 
life. Since the move from the coast to the city, it has certainly not been as I had hoped and I find myself still waiting on God. I’ve have spent the majority of the last 18 months unemployed, working 8 months of those 18. While I was working the money was good and helped a great deal with circumstances. It was wonderful having more money then I have been accustomed to consistently coming in for awhile. It was an easy and convenient online customer service job, but the stress from working with the owner was literally making me sick! Things finally came to a head and he fired me.
I lived the following few months relatively stress free, especially in comparison to what I had been living, but now am beginning to feel the pressure of little to zero money. This situation is an opportunity to trust the Lord because He somehow always comes through. Prior to getting that last job my credit was about to fall off the cliff even though it had been stellar, because I had no idea how I was going to make the next month’s bills and that’s when this job came through after 6 months of being without one. It lasted 8 months and I have been unemployed for the last two and half months. It is amazing how quickly time flies and once again, the pressure is building.
The tendency is to panic, scramble, worry and do anything in my power to make circumstances better while waiting on God. But, what I keep hearing from every direction is to be still and know He will come through. It is hard to be still with everything out of my control and finances so low!
I have felt a heaviness settling in on me as things are beginning to feel a little hopeless and how I want them to be different and to be different NOW!! I have noticed my smile is gone and it is increasingly difficult to care about what others think. I have heard friends tell me to, “Cheer up” and I have felt the heaviness getting harder to bare. It is a kind of ‘giving up’.
I have been pressing in for much larger changes in my life then just finances and for much longer then the last 18 months. I find myself still waiting on God and often grow weary of waiting and weary of never enough, especially, when its only gotten harder and it looks even bleaker. I’ve been here before and the Lord always comes through easing the moment but the reality NEVER seems to change. The pattern, the struggle, the lack never seem to go away. This is where the heaviness and the darkness seems to settle in around me. I am weary. I don’t stay ‘up’ in my own strength, He lifts me up and rescues me for the moment, but the change I look and long for seems so elusive.
As I began to recognize the heaviness and my resistance to it, I heard the Lord speak to me last night. It wasn’t a promise of something grand and exciting but rather it was a reminder of His Word. It wasn’t just a reminder but a better understanding of what He means when He says that those who ‘wait’ on the Lord shall renew their strength and mount up with wings as eagles.
I wouldn’t have thought this scripture applied to me, but I AM waiting and what is more is that God is also asking me to be still. Is it humanly possible to be still while you wait? Each one is hard to do but both of them at the same time and who knows how long the wait will actually last!
Yet, I know this reality is ‘heavy’ and the heaviness takes strength to bare, but if I wait, the Lord promises to renew my strength and to renew it to the place where I will soar like an eagle. That means that things will change and will not always remain as they are currently. I don’t know how nor when they will change, but I do know they will! The circumstance has not changed but the heaviness is not quite so heavy.
Will I continue to trust the Lord or will I worry and fret? I don’t want to worry and be robbed of my joy because regardless of the circumstances, the joy is my strength and I trust in the promise of God for things to change.
At this point I wish I could say everything has changed and life is as I would like it to be, with plenty of money, a husband and new house. Â But in reality, I can honestly say that not much has changed at all.