From Bitterness to Blessing

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. Now, my message is on waiting and what that looks like. And when you're waiting for God to show up, it could be really sun scorched. You can get really dry.

You can get really thirsty. You're walking through a wilderness. Sometimes you're walking through a desert where you don't see Him. You don't hear Him. You don't feel Him.

But in that time, He is still strengthened in your frame. And you will be like that well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. And I have a spring that is flowing from within me. Because of what Christ has done. So I want to share a brief testimony.

I'm 41 years old. My mother was very young when she had me. And she married a man that was not my biological father who adopted me when I was about one, unbeknownst to me. So my whole life, and I'm not going to get into the great details of my childhood, but I was not loved like my siblings. I saw favoritism.

I saw hurt. And in a very young age, I became very bitter. I was very bitter towards my father. I was very envious and bitter of my sister because I saw this favor from our dad over her. And I couldn't understand why my dad didn't love me.

I couldn't understand why I wasn't pretty enough. I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't good enough. And so I just remember asking my grandmother, why doesn't my dad love me? And so from as far back as I can remember, I've just been hurt, been broken, bitter.

I didn't even like my sister. Now I love her. We have an incredible friendship, but only because of what God has done. But so growing up, this bitter root had already begun to settle in my life. And when you fast forward, that bitterness carried into a marriage.

I was a church. I was a young mom. I moved to Texas away from my family. So then there was bitterness because I didn't have my family close by. And, and man, Satan just, he ate me up and ate me for lunch for many, many years.

Finally, fast forward, got into church. So I wasn't raised in church. I attended a Baptist church briefly with my grandmother and anybody that ever has a privilege of meeting my Nana. She's my Jesus with flesh on. And so she's the only person that really showed me Jesus.

And so I got tied into a youth group for a little bit. And so I started to kind of get these nuggets, but it wasn't really until I was in my late twenties that I began to develop a relationship with Jesus. And I gave my life, but even after saved, um, and walking with him, I went through a divorce. So then there's more bitterness and more anger and more brokenness and more destruction. And I'm like, man, God, just continuing to wait for the goodness of God.

I'm like, I know your word says you've, you've come and to give me a life abundant, but I'm just not really feeling the abundance here. And so I've just trekked through this journey of bitterness and brokenness. And then God begins to do a work. Now, wait to me is just a really ugly four letter word, but there are some areas of waiting. What are they?

And what are they? When God doesn't do it, you know, we have a prayer, we have something and we're just like, all right, God, but he just doesn't do it. He doesn't not do it either. He either does nothing, nothing we can see anyway. God doesn't say no, but neither does he say yes.

And then there's this area where God simply says, sweetie, you're going to have to wait. Sometimes the longer the wait, the louder the silence. Sometimes in that wait, bitterness sets in. Maybe like me, it was already present before the waiting. And God is keeping you in this waiting season so he can reveal it and he can heal it.

And that's exactly what he did in my life. So I want to take just a few minutes today. And I mean, Leon did give me this fancy microphone and I wanted to be like him with the headset, but I'll get you out of here by three o'clock, I promise. But I wanted to take a few minutes and I want to dive into what this looks like, waiting on the Lord. Now, I don't know about you, but I sure have been bitter.

I know what it's like, though, to allow that bitterness to turn into a blessing. And God just use you and pours into you and he just does amazing things. Beautiful provision of God through this season. And not only me or you, but there's been countless people in the Bible that we can go to and see how God provided and how God blessed through their waiting. When God says wait, he doesn't tell us for how long.

He doesn't. We know that we have to face one of life's greatest tests. But the really cool thing about that, though, those tests become testimonies. And I'm so thankful that I have a great testimony of what God's done in my life. So when God says wait, we have decisions to make.

When he says wait, we can control only two things. Although I'm a control freak, I have OCD, I love to control things. I'm like, I'm one of those people, I'll handle it, I got it, I got it, I got it. But in this situation, I don't. And neither will you.

We just don't have it. Because only God can. But along that way, we can control how we wait and who we become along the way. And I don't know about you, but I want to become someone that looks like Jesus. I want people to see his goodness and his greatness.

So are we going to be better? Or do we become better? Better versions of ourselves. And the more we seek Christ, and the more we're in his word, and the more we seek after him, we become better versions of ourselves. And that's really my prayer every day, is that I'm not perfect.

I am just a better version of me today than I was yesterday. And that's my prayer every day, is to arrive to a place where, when I make it to heaven, God says, well done, good and faithful servant. Amen? So, in bitterness, you have some pretty nasty pitfalls. And if we're not careful, we will fall right into them.

You see, in the pitfalls of bitterness, you become selfish. And that's what had happened. I'd become a selfish wife. I'd become a selfish mom. I'd become a selfish friend.

I'd become a selfish person. I didn't want to waste my time. I wasn't going to give you my money. I didn't want to. I'd just been burned too many times.

And so I was just very selfish. Self-reliant. We begin to doubt God. All right, God, I know you have a plan, and I know your ways are good and great. But, you know, if we do it this way, and, you know, we think we can control and manipulate the situation because, you know, we always think we could do such a better job than God, right?

And we can make it happen faster. We can make it happen better. And, you know, we become cynical. We become envious. We become envious of those people who can pray for hours, and we can worship, and we have these great talents, and we don't have that, and I could never do this, and I don't have that, and I don't have that kind of money or that kind of house or this or that, and my marriage isn't that great, and my ministry is not flourishing.

And we just become really bitter, cynical, self-pity sets in, woe is me, and I cannot stand a pity party. We become faithlessness that sets in. And if we're not careful, we can even fall into a spirit of depression. But his word... The Lord says, and His word is always true.

In Psalm 27 14 it tells us this, I remain confident of this, that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Psalm 37 3, 4, and 7 tells us, trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. So you see, I have some big desires. I'm a dreamer. I'm a visionary.

I love to think big and I do goal setting every year. I believe in vision boards. I believe in just putting it on something, on a board and looking at it and saying, all right, God, these are my dreams. How do I get there? And so, I mean, whether it's been in my business, in my ministry, in my marriage, for my children, for travel, whatever it looks like, I've just done these vision boards.

And I just believe that He will grant those desires. But it also has to line up with His will. If your desires are out of alignment with His will, they're not happening. And Job, poor, poor Job, very patient while he waited. If only you would appoint a time for me, and this is Job 14, 13.

If so, I could wait all the days of my struggle until my relief comes. You would call and I would answer you. So what does it look like to wait patiently? Like I mentioned earlier, the Bible's full of people that had to wait upon the Lord. And I want to share a few of those stories with you.

Hannah. Hannah is just a beautiful story. Hannah was married to Elkanah. And Hannah really wanted to be a mom. And I know I've had friends that have struggled with infertility and trying to be a mother or father.

I've got friends that are going through an adoption process. And so I just know, you know, having walked through this and praying with them, I don't personally know what that feels like, but I can empathize with them. But she wanted this baby. She was unable to conceive with Elkanah. And in that time it was customary to have multiple wives.

And Elkanah was married to Peninnah. Peninnah had her babies. She had her pretty little baby. She had her pretty little life. And look at me and my family and my kids.

And Elkanah loves me more. And you know, I just imagine what Hannah was feeling and just seeing this paraded in front of her year after year after year waiting for God to give her the desire of her heart. And that was to be a mother. And so again, year after year, she's just waiting. But in that waiting process, she prays.

She knows the Lord and she's praying. And the scripture says she went into the temple and she prayed so hard that the prophet Eli thought she was drunk. Now my girlfriends and my husband will tell you that I'm a praying mama. I'm a praying woman. I believe in the power of prayer.

I circle people in prayer. I circle things in prayer because I know when you begin to pray, you move the hand of God. And so she prayed so hard that he was like, woman, are you drunk? And I I have prayed in the spirit and I have prayed in tongues. I have poured my heart before God.

I'm not really sure anybody ever thought I was drunk. I had to step my prayer game up. But she prayed her heart out. And she told Eli why she was just praying. And he blessed her.

And she took hold of that promise. And she took hold of that because she knew that he was a prophet of God. And she's like, I'm going to hold on to that. And in that waiting season, she became a mother and she birthed Samuel. What a blessing to go from bitterness and brokenness to being a mother.

And not just any mother, but she was the mother of Samuel. Ruth and Naomi. We've done Bible studies in this series and it's just one of my favorite stories. It's a love story. I love the story of Ruth and Boaz, but my favorite little character is Naomi.

Naomi and I laugh because in my mind I'm just, I have a crazy mind sometimes. And I just imagine this little Italian mother, this little Italian mafiosa, because I love all things Italian. So I'm just imagining this little bitter woman. I mean, she's so bitter. She's been told them, don't even call me Naomi.

Call me Mara. I'm bitter. So bitter. And I lost my husband. I lost my sons.

I'm bitter. She's angry. Her husband has died. Her sons have all died. She's lost her family.

And she's got these daughter-in-laws around her now. And they're like, we love you. We're going to stay with you. And she was like, y'all just need to go on, going back to your family, going back to your business. Like, I'm old.

I'm not having any more children. I don't have any more sons to give you. So I don't know what you're going to stick around for. But they left, went back. But Naomi, excuse me, Ruth stayed.

And so in this story, you see these two women that become friends, and they just stick it out, and they wait. And they're waiting for their kinsman redeemer. They're waiting to be redeemed back to their family, redeemed of their land. And the person that's supposed to redeem them, their next of kin, says, nah, I don't really want that. Because if I do that, then I'm going to miss this blessing over here.

And how many times have we said, no, God, I don't want this. I want this over here. But it worked out really good for them. Because you see, Boaz redeemed them. And in that process, Ruth, you know, in our waiting season, we need wise counsel.

We need pastors and friends and girlfriends and sisters and brothers that will encourage us and exhort us and stay alongside of us and be that iron that sharpens. And I think that's what those two ladies were for one another. And so they went from this bitterness to being blessed. See, Boaz comes and redeemed them. And in that blessing, Boaz marries Ruth and their child is in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

What a blessing that was. Joseph, my mama tells me, my dad has the spirit of my stepdad, but I don't like to use the word step. That's my daddy. But he has the spirit of Joseph. But Joseph was betrayed by his brothers.

He's dumped into a hole. Now he's sold into slavery. He comes in, he gets into the Pharaoh's house and fast forward, Pharaoh's gone and his wife's hitting on Joseph. And because he's a man of God and he's a man of valor, a man of honor, he's got good character, character of God. He's, he works off her advances.

And he's like, no. And so she goes and lies about his character and he's thrown in prison for about a year or so and he's praying and still seeking and, but it's like, man, I didn't do anything wrong. I get thrown in jail. My name's tarnished. He could have been real bitter, but God uses him.

In the story of Joseph, when they go through the famine, the very family that betrayed him has to come before him. And he blesses his family. Now that is only the heart of God because you do me wrong like that. I'm not really sure I want to give you all kinds of provisions, but, but he did. And he was blessed and God blessed him.

And he sat at the right hand of Pharaoh and it was just like the man in charge and having gone from slavery to be exalted. Only God can do that. Mary and Martha. It's another prime example of waiting. This is a different kind of waiting.

So their brother, Lazarus is really sick and they know Jesus can heal. And, you know, they say, go get Jesus and bring him back. Cause if he can, you know, he'll heal them and he'll be fine. And Jesus, Jesus. He's.

Jesus intentionally waited. He waited several days before he went to his friend Lazarus. And so now Mary and Martha have buried their brother. He's in the tomb. Like by this time he's in the tomb, he is rank, he is stinky, he is dead, dead.

He is like stinky dead in the tomb. And Jesus waits. Now that was his friend and scripture even tell you that Jesus waited but Jesus also wept for him because he loved and cared about Lazarus. And these women are like Jesus if you had only shown up, if you had, if you had. How many times have we said God if you had only.

Well they're like Jesus if you'd only come sooner he wouldn't be dead. But you see Jesus isn't just a healer. He's a resurrector. He is the resurrection. He is the life.

And he stands and people witness him stand before this tomb and he calls out Lazarus. He couldn't just say hey you come out because then everybody in there would have just come out. But he had to call him by name. Lazarus come forth. You see if Jesus had to come sooner they'd only gotten healing.

He waited because sometimes we need to see the resurrection. Now I'm sorry I'm a crier when it comes to Jesus because he's so good. But they saw the resurrection of Lazarus. Because of the weight. I don't know about you but I've had some things in my life that I have laid to rest and I thought were long dead and my ministry was one of them.

Because I'd fallen from grace, divorced and angry and I was like God will never use me again. I'm done. But he said no sweetie. As long as there's breath of life in you. I'm going to resurrect that area of your life.

I'm going to redeem you. I'm your kinsman redeemer. I'm your hope. I am everything you will ever need. And he is.

He is everything to me. But he would do a work in your marriage. You're on the brink of divorce. God will resurrect and bring healing and favor and blessing. Your family restoration.

He will do that. There are countless others in the Bible that waited patiently for God. It was David, Gideon, Jacob, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the Israelites. I mean dang. They waited a long time for their promised land.

They wandered and waited and waited and waited. And I joke because I know what that wait's like. Because in my 40s I finally hit my promised land. I'm like yeah Moses, yeah Joshua, I get it. I understand now.

It's waiting like this for so long to something to your hope, your heart, whatever it is. Like I said it could be love, marriage, a baby, a job, healing, freedom from addiction, salvation of a loved one, finances, family, no matter what it looks like. The longer you wait, the more time God and if you're not careful, Satan can work on you. So let's ask ourselves, how will I wait? How am I using this time?

Is it glorifying God? How do I want to be during this waiting season? Do I want to be mean? Do I want to be bitter? Do I want to be angry, anxious?

Because his word says be anxious for nothing. Do I want to be impatient? How can God use my life in this? My girlfriend and I often say when we're going through a season or we're going through a waiting or just waiting to hear from God on something, it's like all right God, what are you teaching me? Because I don't want to be bitter.

I don't want to be anxious. I want to hear from you. Are you asking him, speak to me? I want to hear what you have to say about this. What does this look like?

Guide me. So I have three little, my thing is P3. I'm going through something, P3, three Ps, P3. Preach, prayer, praise. If you're going through a season, you need to be in the Word.

You need to know what God's Word says. So you need to be in your Bible. Find out what God's Word says about that. Preach it. Testify about it.

Talk. Talk good. Are you speaking life? Affirm it. His promises are yes and amen.

If you don't know where it is in the Bible, I have this little book, this little purple book. I swear it's my favorite thing in the whole world. That coffee stands on it and everything. It's a little haggard, but it goes from A to Z. Anything you're thinking, anything you're feeling, God's Word has something to say about that.

So preach it. Talk about it. Talk about the Word of God. God's Word says, well, you know, but, oh, mm-mm. What does God's Word say about that?

Ask my girlfriend, tell her that all the time. She'll come to me about something. I'm like, well, what does Jesus say about that? Pray. Be a Hannah.

Be on your face. Pray. Pray without ceasing. Pray like you believe you have entered into the gates of holiness and that you have entered into His court, that you have entered into the Holy of Holiness and go before Him and pray. Pour out your heart.

God loves nothing more than to communicate with His people. So pray. That is a form of communication. I can't imagine going all day without talking to my husband. I will go nuts.

That man calls me every day around noon just to check in on me, make sure my day is going okay, see how things are looking. But he checks in with me because he loves me, cares about me. God's the same way. He wants to hear from you. He wants you to check in with him.

He wants to communicate. So pray and praise. Y'all hear me over there. I'll be praising and preaching. Yeah, pastor, clap, clap, clap, worship.

I'm a loud worshiper and I don't care who it offends because I will praise some Jesus. But praise, P3, preach, pray, praise. Let those be your weapons of warfare. When you're in the waiting, let that be your tool to get through it. See, maybe instead of thinking of waiting journeys as time lost, time wasted, we can think of them as a time repurposed.

If you like to repurpose furniture, I'm not crafty like that. I'll just go to HomeGoods and buy it, Target and buy it. Might upset my husband how many pieces of furniture I bring in the house from time to time, but I'm not one of those repurposed people. But Jesus is. He will repurpose this time where God will reveal his glory.

See, we can choose bitterness or gratitude. We can choose selfishness or selflessness. We can choose inertia or productivity. We can let this time frustrate us or it can fuel us. We can be distracted or we can be disciplined.

We can be fire lighters or we can be firefighters. And I say that because if you have a passion, I have a passion in me. I love Jesus. I love ministering to women because I know what it's like to be a broken woman. And I know what it's like to see him take beauty from ashes and turn something absolutely broken and damaged and beat up and discouraged into something beautiful to where she can stand on a stage and preach the goodness of God in her life because she's been through that.

And I have friends. I have a husband. I have children that will pour gasoline on that fire and just ignite that flame. Or you have people that can be in your life and you can be one of those where you're throwing water to put it out. So don't be a fire lighter.

Be a firefighter because waiting isn't just something we do. It's a place we live. Usually against our will, it's a stage of life. It's a journey we take. It's the crucible of our heart.

See, even if there's an ideal time for life events, sometimes people's choices, our own choices and those of others affect the timeline. And I don't know about you, but... I am like, okay, I need it to happen right now. Like, okay, God, right now, please. So my waiting season came after I met this incredible man.

Crazy. Y'all, anybody that knows me knows I am crazy about Jesus and my husband. And I remember meeting him and dating him and courting me and was this gentleman, and I had never, ever experienced a love like his. And the way he treated me. And so I was like, all right, God, I'm gonna marry this man.

And I was like, I need to marry him. I want to marry him. And ECG hadn't gotten that memo yet. Because he was he was on God's timeline, not my timeline. And so I waited a long time.

I thought I could manipulate him like, all right, well, if I do this, or if I do that, he'll come along, he'll come along. And, and if you know, he wants to go hiking, all right, God, I'll go hiking with him. If it means he'll marry me. If it means I'm getting a ring out of this, I'll, I'll, I'll go out. I'm in, I'm in.

And so we went hiking. Well, I love it. I love a good story. Y'all appreciate this. So we went hiking.

And I don't like hiking. I don't love the outdoorsy stuff. He does. You want to get nature like take me to the spa and wrap me in mud and let me relax with like cucumbers on my face. And I'm like, Oh, that's spiritual.

That's super, super natural. Let's just do it. He wants to go hiking in the woods for like six plus miles. And so I was like, Oh, and so I'm telling my girlfriend and like, girl, what if he's proposing? I'm like, Oh my God.

Yes. Okay. We're going, we're going hiking. So he's like, Oh, you'll be okay. You don't need hiking shoes.

Girl, just bring some sneakers. We're just going to go for a little hike. We're just going to go for a little walk in the woods. I'm out of shape. Six plus miles in the woods.

I'm slipping and sliding everywhere. I lost Jesus for just a few minutes or maybe a few hours in that trip. My girlfriend would tell you, and I'm like, no, I didn't say that. She's like, Hey girl, you threatened to throw Skittles at the back of his head. You threatened to throw them off the mountain.

I was like, but did I really, I think I did. I probably, I did. I ain't gonna lie. I can't lie. Jesus hears.

But I was like, got up to this mountain. Like I am tired. I am sweaty. I am ugly. Nothing pretty, nothing cute, nothing girly.

And I am girly, girly. And it was miserable. I hated every minute of it, but because I loved him, I'm like, yeah, I'm having a great time. Yes, this is so much fun. I love it.

But I'm like, okay, if we get to the summit, he's going to pull out this Tiffany two carat diamond ring. And he's going to propose. And I'm going to say yes. And this will all be worth it. And I have waited for so long.

We got up to the summit. He's like, look at this view. And I'm like, it's beautiful. Thank God. So I can sit down and rest because I'm dying.

He goes and reaches into his bag. And I'm like, yes, Jesus. Thank you. Please, please, please. And he pulls out trail mix, not Tiffany's.

I'm like, yay. This is so much fun. Fast forward another year. He's like, we're going hiking. And I'm like, okay, certainly this time around, he knows that I'll do things that he likes.

We can go out in the woods and hike. And I'll be that wife. I'll go out there. Whether I like it or not, we'll do it. Go up hiking again.

This time, girlfriend's got her hiking boots, no sneakers, hiking pants. I'm like, all right, we're going to get this. We're going to get this. We're going to go on those waterfalls. And he's going to propose.

It's going to be romantic. And I'm going to have this. Yes. And so I'm just imagining what this is going to look like. Can we get up there?

And nope. I'm like, dang, what's our girl got to do to get an engagement ring, to get married? Because I love you. But you see, in that whole time, I'm thinking, all right, God, this would be really good. And God's up there going, I got something better.

You just wait. Just wait. Because what you think looks really good, suffer it out, stick it out for a little longer. Hold on, because I got something really good planned. And see, in that whole time, I'm waiting.

If I'd have gotten married back here, God, he wouldn't have been able to do a work in my heart. I wouldn't have been able to be the woman, the selfless woman that I am, and wouldn't have been able to love him and be able to receive that kind of love. Because you see, if you can't receive real love, you can't give real love. And so I walked through this, and after about a year, he came to know the Lord as his Savior. I actually got to go to the altar when he gave his life to the Lord, and we began a ministry together.

And I watched God work in us and heal our hearts and start to do something out of that miry clay. And he began to form and fashion something that only he could do. Then we got baptized in the ocean. And it was beautiful because we baptized one another. I baptized my husband, and my husband baptized me.

And you fast forward exactly one year to the date of our baptism. My husband surprised me with a trip to Italy. You see, on my vision board was Rome, Italy in big letters. And I'd prayed, and I wanted so bad to travel and to see these beautiful historical lands and just to experience something so beautiful. And so we're standing, we're in Italy, and I'm like, oh my gosh, Italy.

And so by this time, I'm like, I don't even care if he proposes. I'm in Italy, y'all. I'm just going to have myself a good old time. I'm not going to expect it. I'm not going to wait for it.

My dad died. He even told me he's going to propose. I'm like, no, I just think it's because he's so good. We're going to Italy. We're going to have a good time.

But you see, instead of that dirty mountain where I am groaning and griping the whole time in my head, God says, wait, because he's going to take you to Italy. And my princess, I'm going to give you a king here on earth that's going to love you like a queen and love you the way that I do. He takes me to this castle. And on the top of this castle, overlooking the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, it's a beautiful night sky all lit up, beautiful music, breathtaking, gorgeous view.

I see from the corner of my eye, the man I have longed for to get down on his knee and say an Italian, which I cannot quote. I'm so sorry. But in Italian, he tells me, I want to grow old with you and our God. And he proposed marriage. That was much better than a dirty wooded area hiking that I didn't even like.

He granted me the desires of my heart. Because in that time, he'd even asked me, do you trust me for him? And I said, no, I don't. I trust you with all of this, but I don't really know what that looks like with him. And I put him before God, and I got things out of alignment, and I had to repurpose.

And God had to realign me and get my focus on him and not this man. And he blessed me. And not only did he give me this big, elaborate, beautiful, romantic proposal, but he gave me a marriage that is rock solid. He gave me ground to stand on to where, you know, people that might be hurting and not thriving that we could minister to. And he put vessels for God, my women's ministry in me, and he birthed this.

And he's just done things over and over and over and over and over again. One, because I've said, God, have your way. Let your will be done, not mine. And he's blessed. So don't say I will get even for this wrong.

Wait for the Lord to handle the matter. So, girls, you can't be threatened to throw your boo off a mountain or throw acorns at the back of his head or Skittles or threaten to beat him with a walking stick. You just wait. Whatever that timeline looks like, this we can be confident in. God sees.

God sees. God sees. God hears. And God really cares. God feels our pain when the wait stretches long.

And as good as my life is, I'm thankful. I mean, that's, God, Jesus promised to give us the abundant life. And I believe He has. He's blessed me with a beautiful, beautiful children, a wonderful husband, a wonderful church home, and all kinds of good stuff. But sometimes things along the wait stretch long.

And we have to wait. I'm waiting for my son. The waiting hurts sometimes. It's not always fun. It stretches long.

It stretches for months. We see someone broken and Satan eating them for lunch. You see, when we get out of our waiting season, we're strong and we're, that garden, that spring, we can help bring somebody else along the way that needs help in their waiting season. Because God's done the work in us that He needed to do that He can use us to help someone else. So I'm going to look back on this season and know that God heard every prayer.

He's asked me to wait. He's asked you to wait, to be patient. He teaches even in silence, even in the words, hold on. He's always, always worth the wait. And He thinks we are too.

Heavenly Father, I thank You. God, I thank You that You are so good all the time. And all the time You are good. Thank You that in these moments and in these seasons, when we walk through valleys and wildernesses and even deserts, and we feel like we are a sun-scorched soul, You revive us, You replenish us. Only You, God, can take bitterness and turn it into a blessing.

Only You, God, can move the mountains that we need. I thank You. In Jesus' name. Amen.