Refuel Your Wait. Laci Richter

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      List your major trials and sorrows thus far in life. Were you in a relationship with God when you faced those trials?

      Are you expecting or preparing for any trials in the immediate future? (loss of an ailing loved one, financial hardship, change in relationship status)

      When you are in a season of trials are you aware of God’s presence making your path straight, or do you find yourself lost in sorrow?

      What action items can you put in place to be near to his word when facing stressful situations? (reading scripture, speaking with faith-filled friends, focusing on prayer life)

      Chapter Four

      Search and Rescue

      “The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.”

      (Lamentations 3: 25–26)

      For one year my husband and I tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant the “good-old-fashioned way.” We had an early intuition that something wasn’t quite right so we sought medical help right away. Simultaneously, at that one year mark, we were relocating across the country for a job opportunity for my husband.

      After the move, we immediately found a specialist and started fertility treatments. During treatments, you are required to spend a lot of time in a doctor’s office for weekly ultrasounds and blood work. My husband and I decided that I would take a sabbatical from work while building our family. We did not expect the process of building our family to take three years. During this time, I felt societal pressure to find a job, but I also felt stronger prompts keeping me home.

      My time off was intended to be focused on organizing my home and preparing for a child. This preparation time turned into a trying time of failed fertility treatments and several interrupted adoptions. Unexpectedly, that waiting time resulted in a space in which I was searching and developing a personal relationship with God. We quickly found a church that we were comfortable in and we began building a church family. I found God bringing many relationships to me with people of abundant faith and hearts of service. Quiet moments felt uncomfortable and a waste of time, but soon enough my idle time turned into space to think, pray, and write.

      Our Heavenly Father rejoices in our dependence on him. The days when we throw our hands in the air and proclaim, “Help me Lord” are music to his ears. He wants us to depend on him, search for him, and yes, wait for him.

      Wait with Hope

      How often do you make or take time to wait quietly?

      What “time wasters” could you eliminate to make space in your day to wait quietly?

      Commit to a week with daily quiet time and journal your thoughts.

      Chapter Five

      Joyful Source

      “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

      (Romans 15:13)

      The year that my husband and I decided to seek fertility treatment was the same year we decided to relocate our lives. We were living in a city across the country from our families’. We felt the need to be closer to family and closer to the places where we grew up as we thought about raising children. My husband’s company had a convenient location near our family with a job opportunity available for him. After moving across the country and finding a specialist to work with, we immediately started fertility treatments. After one year of unsuccessful fertility treatments, we moved forward to the adoption process. During these years, I remained unemployed for various reasons which left me with abundant time for projects and daydreaming of our future family.

      After one year stretched into two, I decided it might be better to spend my time doing more than planning a baby nursery and daydreaming of a family. Through our church, I randomly fell into a volunteer position for a nonprofit kitchen that provided meals to the working poor and homeless. With very little industrial kitchen experience or experience with the homeless–this was out of my comfort zone.

      While volunteering on a regular basis, I met a group of people whose source of joy was surely that of the Lord. Regardless of the task they had been given, whether it was mopping the floor or serving food, they did the task with complete joy. From the nonprofit leader to the kitchen managers to the servers, every one of them presented with a mysterious shining light. After a few weeks, I was given a consistent task of rolling out the pizza dough for the lunch menu. For two to three hours at a time, I would stand in the same spot and roll out 40 pizzas. It was the most meditative, joyful, fulfilling hours of my week. The people we were serving usually walked in looking defeated yet left in an entirely different light. The meals were about so much more than providing food to those in need. The meals provided nourishment of the spirit and the soul.

      God is our source of hope, our source of wisdom, our source of love. The more we trust in him, the more he provides. When we surround ourselves with those who have accepted him as their nourishment, we are then filled with their light. That nourishment, that light that you receive, will then radiate joy and peace towards others.

      Wait with Hope

      Can you think of a person or a group of people who exude confident hope and joy in their daily actions?

      Do you recognize their source of joy as their relationship with God or some other source?

      Are there times when you feel drawn to them and other times when you feel the need to avoid them?

      Can you think of a place or event that you can find people who radiate this source?

      Can you think of daily actions that can bring you closer to people with this source?

      Chapter Six

      Baby Steps

      “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.”

      (Proverbs 16:9)

      My husband and I are not high school sweethearts and didn’t live in the same state during college. We met when we were twenty-eight and well into the adulthood of finding a permanent job, a better place to live, and mature friends. We enjoyed our dating stage into our newlywed stage and before we knew it, we were thirty-years-old. Now, we were ready to start a family and parent together.

      After trying to conceive on our own for a year, we sought help from a doctor. We found a specialist and began the rigorous and exhausting attempt of conceiving through medical intervention and fertility treatments.

      At the beginning of each cycle, I would calculate the expected due date of the baby were that fertility treatment to be successful. Then, I would continue on to prepare plans for the future. I would daydream about exactly how we would tell our family the exciting news. I would get wrapped up in decor, colors, and furniture shopping for the nursery. And I would think through what daily life as a stay-at-home mom, with a precious newborn, would look like. These vivid daydreams consumed my thoughts. Every negative pregnancy test consumed my joy.

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