Held While Waiting
When God Works Beyond Our Vision
“...for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” Philippians 2:13
Toward the end of 1998, to our surprise and disappointment, we were told that Tom’s student visa to Nepal was being withdrawn. We were given only a short window to pack and depart from Kathmandu. The decision was not ours, and there was no appeal that would change it. Once again, the ground beneath us shifted without warning.
Questions surfaced immediately. Was God redirecting us? Was this the end of a chapter we had only just begun? We had recently been asked to serve as Strategy Coordinators and Facilitators for the Tibetan Buddhist world with the Network for Strategic Missions. Perhaps this was the moment to step back to the United States, to operate from a different base, to continue to cover more territory while learning what this new role would require. There was no answer yet. Only the sense that we were entering a season of waiting.
My journals from that autumn reflect restlessness more than resolution. On October 22, after meeting friends in Manila, I wrote of the encouragement it was to hear what God was doing elsewhere, and then asked simply, What will He do with us? A few days later, I admitted how difficult stillness was for me. Waiting did not come naturally. I wanted direction, clarity, motion.
By October 28, while in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I found myself remembering another season years earlier when I had been stuck in China with my baby daughter; waiting had been required of me then without understanding. Then, as now, I could do nothing to move things forward. I could only remain where I was and trust that God was at work beyond what I could see.
We were still moving geographically, yet inwardly we were waiting. Ministry continued. Meetings filled the days. But clarity lagged behind activity, and I had to learn again that God does not always reveal His next step before asking us to pause.
One evening in early November, back in Kathmandu, I wrote words that steadied my heart. The children were asleep. Tom and Matthew were in Argentina. Richard was in Tulsa. Nathaniel was in China. And I realized that Jesus was present in every one of those places at the same time. He was not limited by geography or separation. He was holding each of us, even while we were scattered.
That awareness brought deep comfort. God was not only ahead of us, preparing what lay next. He was also with us, fully present in the waiting.
Gatherings such as the Southwest China Partnership meetings in mid-November provided opportunities to listen and to join hands with others serving in similar regions. I valued those moments of shared vision and shared labor. At the same time, I noticed how easily prayer could become peripheral in such settings. I had learned enough by then to know that without continual abiding, without intimacy with the Lord, activity alone bore little fruit. It was a quiet resolve that had formed in me that prayer must remain central, not optional.
Later that month, after a leadership gathering in Singapore, I wrote again, this time anchoring myself in Scripture. I reminded myself that it was God who was at work in me, both to will and to do His good pleasure. That He was working all things together for good. That He would complete what concerned me. These were not declarations of certainty, but confessions of trust.
As the year drew to a close, we returned briefly to the United States. Our oldest son came home from college for the holidays, and we gathered at my parents’ home in Austin, Texas. For our children, Meme and Papa’s house had become their stateside anchor, a place of familiarity amid constant movement. Those days of family connection were gifts. They grounded us, even as assignments shifted once again.
Waiting was still difficult. Uncertainty had not resolved itself. But trust continued to grow. What the next chapter would hold, we could not yet see. We only knew the One who held it.
[The songs from this journey are also gathered in the Spotify playlist “Dancing on Raindrops.”Or, visit the YouTube playlist “Dancing on Raindrops”.]
Reflection Questions
Where are you being asked to wait without clear direction, trusting God to work even as answers remain delayed? How do you experience God's presence when the people you love are scattered and circumstances feel unsettled? What practices help you remain anchored in trust when restlessness presses in? In what ways might God be forming you during seasons of waiting rather than merely preparing you for what comes next?
