After the Fire
When the Journey Ends But the Call Goes On
When we returned from the Heart of Darkness prayer journey in the fall of 1993, life did not slow down. If anything, the intensity we had encountered on the road followed us home and settled quietly into the ordinary spaces of our lives. Nothing felt the same. We had gone to pray across some of the most spiritually resistant regions on earth. We returned to mortgages, children, deadlines, illnesses, and unanswered questions.
Even as we focused on the assignment God had given us among the Buddhist world, other concerns pressed in. Our Florida home was up for sale, and we were praying for a buyer before our return on November 8. Provision felt close but uncertain, always just out of reach.
Not long afterward, Tom and our young son Matthew traveled to Kathmandu for a gathering of missionaries and pastors working among Tibetan Buddhists. Security concerns made openness difficult. Many of the workers were understandably cautious with new faces. Tom returned grateful for the opportunity but sobered by the realities they lived with every day. The work was costly. The burden was real.
At home, I continued to write in my journal. On January 14, 1994, I recorded a vivid dream. In it, I was ministering in a Tibetan Buddhist area and witnessed a lama and a Buddhist nun come to faith in Christ. I woke with both awe and longing. I wrote a simple prayer. “Lord, may it be so. Allow me to be an instrument of Your love to these people so locked in darkness.” I did not know if the dream was promise, intercession, or simply longing shaped by recent experience. I only knew to hold it before God.
The weeks that followed were heavy. Tom was deep into his studies at Regent University, exhausted and discouraged by how slowly progress seemed to come. Our home felt stretched in every direction. Children were struggling. Homeschooling felt difficult to manage. Emotions were raw. Patience was thin.
One night before a cell group meeting, I poured all of it into my journal. The pressures. The fatigue. The impatience we felt waiting for things to resolve. Yet even as I wrote, the Lord gently reframed my thinking. Growth often comes through discomfort. Like childbirth, the contractions we want to escape are often the very means God uses to bring life. Jesus’ sacrifice was costly, yet it accomplished salvation. The narrow way has always required endurance.
By early February, the strain felt constant. Illness moved through our home. Sleep was interrupted. Anxiety pressed in from multiple directions. Finances were tight. Our sense of spiritual opposition felt personal, designed to divide and discourage.
Then one day, I stopped and looked back. A year earlier, I had been pregnant, unsettled, and overwhelmed. We were new to the area, without a support system, burdened by debt, and struggling to find our footing. Now, though many challenges remained, God had been faithful in tangible ways. We were grounded in a church community. The children were thriving more than before. Support had come. Debts had shifted. We had been able to study, travel, give, and serve far beyond what our circumstances seemed to allow. Gratitude did not remove the pressure, but it steadied my heart. God had been at work, even when progress felt slow.
March brought more challenges. Health concerns resurfaced. Tom traveled for medical testing on his heart yet again. Our parents came to help. Children fell ill, then recovered, then fell ill again. There were moments when it felt as though warfare pressed in from every side. Yet there were also moments of prayer, of anointing, of peace returning quietly in the night.
On my forty second birthday at the end of March, the Lord gave small gifts of kindness. A class with my eldest son. Dinner with Tom. A pie baked by a friend. Cards and handmade gifts from the children. These were not grand gestures, but they felt deeply personal. Reminders that God saw us and cared for us in the midst of strain.
I wrote again in my journal, acknowledging that even our lack pointed us back to God as our source. Provision had not yet arrived in full, but trust was being formed.
Spring continued to test us. Finances remained uncertain. Disappointment and fatigue lingered. Yet in the midst of it all, God kept teaching us to pray, to listen, and to keep walking. Life felt like learning to dance on raindrops. Could I keep looking up no matter what fell around us?
One ordinary day, as I stood at the sink washing dishes, our twelve-year-old son walked by, placed his hand on my back, and quietly said, “Be bold, Mom.” Then he walked on.
Not long afterward, I attended a consultation in Colorado Springs connected to missions and unreached peoples. I was an introvert, shy and uncertain, unsure of how I would manage on my own. Yet, I returned home with pages of notes and conversations, amazed at what God had done in me. It felt like a small but real turning point. Even Tom noticed the quiet change God had worked in me. God was gently expanding my capacity, not through force, but through His anointing, through obedience, and grace.
Looking back, I see that this season was not about new assignments as much as it was about learning how to live faithfully after intense encounters with God. The journey had ended, but the call had not yet resolved into clarity. Instead, it pressed deeper into daily life, shaping us quietly through endurance, listening, and trust.
The fire had done its work. We were no longer who we had been, but it was still uncertain who we were becoming. What we did know was this: before God would show us what came next, He was inviting us to listen more carefully, together.
[The songs from this journey are also gathered in the Spotify playlist “Dancing on Raindrops.”Or, visit the YouTube playlist “Dancing on Raindrops”.]
“But I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.” Psalm 31:14-15
Reflections
Where in your life has God met you most deeply not in intensity, but in the ordinary pressures of daily faithfulness? Are there areas where you are still waiting for clarity, yet sensing God’s invitation to trust Him with the timing? What helps you remember God’s faithfulness when progress feels slow or unseen? How might God be forming endurance, humility, or quiet joy in you during a season that feels unresolved?
