It was like waiting for the doctor to come into the waiting room and tell you they were going to make it.
It was like being Jonah in the bottom of a whale waiting for my cry to be heard.
“He said: “In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.” [Jonah 2:2]
It was like watching the little dots on an imessage waiting for a response.
It was like looking for land when you have been lost at sea.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
I left church one Sunday months and months ago with a weight in my hand. The weight took form in a light bulb. We were in a series called “Winsome” where our pastor was nailing over and over that a desire needed to be birthed in us to see people come to see Jesus.
Light bulbs were given to us. Given to us to represent a person we wanted to see go from death to life. The light bulb was to serve as a reminder of that person, to pray for them, and when the time came that they found their way to the feet of Jesus we would give them the light bulb. Our pastor encouraged us to think of someone and to commit to praying for them to find Jesus, but as I sat in my chair while he talked my mind couldn’t find its name to one person. There was no one being laid on my heart.
My pastor said, “it could be your sister who has flushed your finances down the toilet and is a drug addict.” I can still hear the words clear as day. It might not have been my sister, but I knew, I knew my light bulb was for my brother.
Addiction has run rabid through my family this past year. I have never faced that struggles, and that is only by the grace of God. But because of that I couldn’t relate, and I searched for the compassion, but resentment was the only thing I could find.
But something shifted in me that day. My resentment became conviction. For so long I was just wishing/praying my brother would stop doing drugs, because that would solve all the problems. That would stop my resentment. That would remove my embarrassment of having to tell people he was in rehab. That would stop my mom from having to spend money on him. But in the end none of that was the answer, Jesus was.
My prayers changed that day. Because everything I was praying was all about me. Selfish prayers are as good as no prayers.
So it began.
Days.
Weeks.
Months.
Journal entries.
I prayed. I prayed that my brother would become the prodigal and return home to the father. But every Sunday, the “Jesus is life wall” where the light bulbs where to be screwed into, starred me in the face and was a painful reminder that I had to keep praying.
But that is when the praying means the most. When you are so tired, growing hopeless, and just want to throw the towel in. That is when it is most important to keep praying. When the words are barely coming out and your knees ache from finding yourself on them. Even then… keep praying.
Yesterday marked 7 months.
7 months that my brother has been at rehab.
We loaded up the car and drove 3 ½ hours to what they call his “blessing” aka when he leaves to come home. In the back of the room we sat, me and the rest of my family, as one man after another got up and shared about my brother and the impact he has had on them while he has been in this treatment center. Then he got up. The words that came from his mouth were words that sent me into flashbacks of night and nights of begging God to do what only he could do.
Jesus did it.
They offered the chance for the family to say something if they wanted. As I walked to the front of the room, where 51 guys waited for me to get words out, I knew this was the time. I explained the “Jesus is life wall” and the winsome series, etc….
You see, I held on to that light bulb. I held on to that light bulb, with faith that Jesus would bring my brother home, and yesterday it made a change. It went from being a weight in my pocket, to being a tangible way of showing my brother that not once did I stop praying for him, not just me but so many others as well.
The moment when I handed him the light bulb that I have held on to for so long will be engraved in my mind/heart for the rest of my life. But something else will too…
Talking in front of that many guys can be intimidating, especially when you know the journey they are on, but as I looked out and saw so many of them eyes full of tears something clicked in me.
For some the tears came from the sentimental aspect of the moment me and my brother shared, but I think the message to most of them was, “she didn’t give up.”
I think that’s it.
I think that sometimes people just need to know that you won’t give up on them. I think that sometimes people need to know that you will walk the road back with them, hand in hand. I think sometimes people need to know that the messiness doesn’t scare you off. I think sometimes people need to know that even if it takes months and months that you will wait. Because all those things simply say, “I believe in you.”
Yesterday my brother came home from rehab, but more than that, yesterday my brother became the prodigal returning home. Seven months clean, which is what we all desperately wanted. But more than that he knows it was all Jesus, and that is something that makes all the waiting so worth it.
Today, we celebrate. We celebrate a simple little light bulb. We celebrate it finally finding its way to the person it was designed for. We celebrate the returning of the prodigal. We celebrate that Jesus works while we wait. We celebrate that my brother now has a story to tell.
A story that says, “Jesus is able.”
A story of someone walking out of the darkness and into the light.
A story of someone going from death to life.
A story that he will now go and tell.
Keep praying.
Jesus is life.
