An Excerpt from Chapter 4 of Breathless Haste: Finding God in Ordinary Life

A couple of months later, Jay knew his interim role as pastor was sadly drawing to a close. It was the first job in his life he had loved and the first to which he had felt called. Without asking or telling me, he decided to call the church to learn more about the internship. (I think he was pretty sure I would stop him in his tracks.) They told him that he was very late in the process but that we should come to Chicago in a couple of weeks for the internship training weekend. Jay told me about this call and their response. I was taken aback and reacted with a loud, “No! You check out all the other seminaries and all the other options. If after a few months, you still are interested, I will go with you then.” I wanted to scream. My heart’s desire was to find a path that would allow us to stay right where we were—in our forever home, near our forever friends and family.

Shortly after that intense discussion, Jay went away for his annual duck hunting trip with his friends and our beloved chocolate Labrador, Genny. The first night he was away, I woke up and looked over at the old brown plastic clock next to my bed. The bright red digits read 4:30. It was very dark outside. The children were still young, and they were typically the only reasons I would wake up in the middle of the night. But they were both asleep. This was highly unusual for me, but I rolled over and went back to sleep.

The second night of his absence, I woke again. I glanced at the clock—the big red numbers showed 4:30 again, not 4:25 or 4:32. Once more, I rolled over and returned to sleep. The third night, another awakening—it was 4:30 a.m. I finally tossed back the covers and very irreverently said, “Okay, God. What is it?”

I got up and plopped into the red chaise lounge chair right next to my bed, the place where I most often read and prayed. The book The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian[1] was lying face down on my chair, open to chapter 9. I had been praying the prayers outlined on the pages almost daily, but I hadn’t been reading the actual text of the chapters. Not knowing what else to do, I began to read the contents of chapter 9, titled “His Purpose”: “Everyone has a purpose. It’s the reason we exist. . . . When [your husband] discovers that purpose, and is doing what he was created to do, becoming what he was created to be, he will find fulfillment. This can only contribute to your happiness as well.”[2] The tears began to flow as I turned each page. It was as if God were writing on the pages of this book with a black marker, “Go to Chicago!”

Surely God wasn’t asking me to leave everything I had ever known. My quiet tears turned into sobbing.

As I reflect on this encounter, I am struck by the similarities between it and Jay’s experience at Promise Keepers, when God spoke to him about me and my desire for another baby. In this instance, it was God speaking to me about Jay and his purpose. Jay and I both heard from God in different ways in these situations. Because each of us was open to God’s guidance and wanted His best for the other, it strengthened our marriage. Wanting God’s best for your spouse is a gift to them.

I called my dear friend Melody a few hours after my early morning awakening. We met for a walk. I shared with her what had happened, and the tears continued to flow as we followed the long path in the park. She told me that Jay and I had to go to investigate the internship, and she offered to watch our children. I knew in my head that she was right, but my heart was aching, and I could not stop thinking about the implications of this situation. Jay called later that day, and I explained the events of the early morning and what I thought God was telling me. He was blown away.

Jay never pushed this internship on me. He knew that we were in this together, so he patiently waited for God to bring us together on any decision for our future. I think if I had been in his position, I would have prodded, pushing the idea harder and arguing with him. Instead, he let God do the work in me. In the long run, that is the best approach, but it requires patience in the waiting.

My mind began constantly to churn on just the possibility of moving. I worried about schools, leasing our house, and packing. I am a planner and organizer, so that is where my thoughts tend to go. I was sad and anxious about all of it. One morning before Bible study, I went to church early and found my way to the chapel to catch up on my Breaking Free study homework.[3] I couldn’t get the lights on in the chapel, so I just sat down on one of the church pews. The morning sunlight poured through the stained glass window, shining on the spot right where I was sitting. I began to read, and this is what Beth Moore said in the pages of her study: “Have you sometimes experienced defeat because you refused to calm yourself in the presence of God and trust Him? . . . Once we’ve obeyed God, we can do nothing more. We then wait on Him to bring the victory, knowing the consequences of our obedience are His problem and not ours.”[4] As the potential challenges of moving to Chicago spun around in my head, I had to remember that those were God’s problems, not mine.

The pastoral candidate quickly accepted the full-time position at First Presbyterian, so Jay’s days of working in his interim role were numbered. It felt as if we had buckled in for a roller-coaster ride that had just left the platform. Things were accelerating quickly.

We decided to take a trip to see my parents, who were in their eighties. We felt it was time to start the conversation with them about this potential internship, even though it seemed premature. We told my father that a new minister was being hired, and my father’s initial response was to ask Jay to come help him farm. He had always longed to see us move to Florence, South Carolina, to live in the old homeplace and continue the farm that had been in our family for three generations. As we continued the discussion of the details of what was happening in our hearts and souls, I am sure this news of a potential job in Chicago was extremely hard for my father to hear. There was no one else in our family who wanted the opportunity to farm. Who would live in the home? How would the farm go on? But before the conversation finished, my father said to us, “One generation can’t tell the next generation what to do.”

He was willing to let us go, even though it must have been so painful for him. We were not only saying no to him and no to the farm, but also limiting the frequency of family visits. The distance between him and his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren would be a daunting fourteen-hour drive instead of three.

At about the same time, my mother-in-law, Sara, who was in her sixties, found out that she had a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. Jay is an only child, so this news was even more difficult in light of what we were considering. Fortunately, our minds were eased because Sara had remarried and had a wonderful husband, Fred, who took care of her every need. But we still knew that it would be best for us to be nearby. We decided not to share with them all the details of this opportunity until we were more sure about the internship.

Our desire to honor and care for our parents seemed in complete opposition to what we thought we were being led to do. If we were in Chicago, how could we care well for aging or ill parents in South Carolina?

A week or so later, we took a 5:50 a.m. flight to attend the internship retreat. It was the only flight we could afford with our frequent flyer points. Oddly enough, it was snowing that morning in South Carolina, so the plane had to be de-iced, but we finally made it to Chicago by way of a flight change in Dallas. Later, we found out that the 11:00 a.m. direct flight we had wanted to take had been canceled due to the snow and the shutdown of the interstate. We would have missed much of the internship gathering had we been on that flight. God continued to show up in every little detail.

We arrived in Chicago to sub-zero windchill, picked up the rental car, and made our way to the church. The intensity of the cold weather took our breath away. The internship gathering included about twenty people who were applying for the program that was to begin a few months later. Many of these intern applicants had been in the process for at least a year.

On Saturday night, we attended the church service, which just happened to be Vision Night, an annual event attended by thousands of people. My traditional church experience was being stretched in every way—through words, sights, and sounds. I had never been a part of a service like that before. The service was held in an auditorium with theatre style seating for 4,500 people. It had a massive center stage with digital screens on either side and large windows overlooking a lake to the right and to the left—no pews, no stained glass, no hymnals, no organ, no choir anywhere in sight. The voices and sounds of the incredible musicians and full band joined by a room full of people standing and singing passionately gave me goosebumps. The senior pastor’s words and vision casting about the gospel and the future of the church were powerful and moving. My soul was filled and overwhelmed at the same time. He explained that the church hosted about nineteen thousand people each weekend during four services, and that about ten thousand churches were connected with the church association. This was a far cry from my church experience with hundreds of people attending a service week to week. I found it completely mind-boggling.

 The pastor spoke of the ten values of the church, which included anointed biblical teaching, how lost people matter to God, and that the church is led by those with leadership skills. The final value was full devotion to Christ—taking the hand of Christ and leaving your agenda behind. Gulp. I like having my own agenda.

[1] Stormie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Wife (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2014).

[2] Omartian, Power of a Praying Wife, 93–95.

[3] Beth Moore, Breaking Free: Making Liberty in Christ a Reality in Life (Nashville, TN: Lifeway, 1999).

[4] Moore, Breaking Free, 144.