After a Little While.

On waiting. On surrender. On what God does when you finally stop trying to do it yourself.

You are tired of waiting. If you are being honest — and NARD always asks you to be honest — you have been patient for a long time. You have prayed. You have believed. You have planted the seeds and watered them and stood over the ground watching for something to break through. And some days nothing comes. Some days the ground looks exactly like it did yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

The enemy loves that moment. That exact pause between the planting and the harvest. He sets up camp there. He brings his best arguments — that it is not coming, that you waited too long, that other women have what you were promised, and somehow you were skipped. He offers you average as a consolation prize. He offers you a distraction as a detour. He offers you giving up as a form of relief.

Do not take it.

The enemy's best weapon is the gap between your prayer and your answer. Do not let him live there.

Be Still. Not Silent. Still.

There is a difference between being still and being quiet. God does not ask you to stop feeling. He does not ask you to pretend the waiting does not hurt. He does not ask you to manufacture a smile and call it faith. He asks you to be still — to stop running, to stop fixing, to stop trying to engineer the outcome with your own hands.

Be still and know that I am God. Do not be still and figure it out. Do not be still and wait for a sign. Be still and know. The knowing comes in the stillness. The clarity comes when you finally stop moving long enough to hear what He has been saying all along.

She knows this. The NARD woman knows this because she has been in the noise and in the stillness, and she knows which one God lives in.

Stop moving long enough to hear what He has been saying all along.

Seek Him in All of It.

In happiness. In the grief. In the anger — yes, the anger too. In the season of abundance and the season of drought. In the marriage that is thriving and the friendship that fell apart. In the business that is growing, and the dream that has not moved in months. In all of it. Seek Him in all of it.

Because here is what nobody tells you about faith — it is not a fair-weather practice. It is not something you pick up when life is good and set down when life gets hard. Faith is the thing you carry through the storm, not around it. And the woman who carries it through — not around, not over, not under, through — is the woman who comes out the other side knowing something about God that she could not have learned any other way.

He is near the brokenhearted. That verse used to feel like comfort, and now it feels like testimony. It is not that He was far before. It is that in the breaking, you leaned in. And leaning in to God — fully, completely, without condition — will get you further and faster into your purpose than any plan you could have made on your own.

"And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast."

— 1 Peter 5:10 NIV

After a Little While.

Read that again. After you have suffered a little while. Not a long while. Not forever. A little while. And then — He himself will restore you. Not a pastor. Not a friend. Not a breakthrough you manufactured by hustling harder. Him. Personally. Specifically. For you.

Strong. Firm. Steadfast. Those are not soft words. Those are words for a woman who came through something. Those are the words God uses for the woman who waited when everything in her wanted to run. Who surrendered when everything in her wanted to control. Who planted seeds in the ground that looked dead and kept watering anyway?

That is you. That is the NARD woman. She is not waiting because she has no other options. She is waiting because she knows who she is waiting on — and she has seen what He does when He shows up.

She is not waiting because she has no options. She is waiting because she knows who she is waiting for.

He is an And Suddenly God.

You need to know this about Him. You need to write it somewhere you will see it on the hard days. He is an and suddenly God. The Red Sea parts, and suddenly. The walls of Jericho fell suddenly. The dead are raised and suddenly. The barren woman conceives and suddenly. The prodigal comes home, and suddenly the father is running — running — down the road before the son even gets close.

And suddenly it is not random. And suddenly is the result of faith that held on past the point where it made sense to hold on. And suddenly is what happens on the other side of the little while.

You are in the little while. Hold on.

SURRENDER THIS WEEK

Write down the one thing you have been trying to control. The one thing you keep picking back up after you said you surrendered it. Put it on paper. Read 1 Peter 5:10 over it. Then leave it there. Not because the feeling goes away — but because faith is the practice of choosing Him over the feeling, every single day, until suddenly arrives.