Suddenlies...

Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Waiting Room: A Suddenly Around the Corner
By: Destiny Vandeput

Being alone just wasn’t something I was interested in.

I was that girl that always had a boyfriend and thrived off of all the drama that it would entail. I loved the attention and the activity; I loved the dates and I even enjoyed the fights.

The concept of a waiting room was not anywhere on my radar, I was having fun! Right?

Yet, even in all my “fun” of playing the field I was depressed, sad, constantly struggled with thoughts of suicide and above all else I viewed myself as someone who could never be fully loved for who I was. I was a dark person.

But for Jesus.

Isn’t that the phrase that has saved us all from a life of misery, depression and pain?

When I was 20 I had a radical encounter with Jesus that shook me to the core and forever changed my DNA. This girl who thought herself as too rough around the edges to ever be loved, all of a sudden was overwhelmed with the thick, ever encompassing love of Jesus that filled every crevice and left no area unaffected.

My life of sexual immorality had been washed in the blood of Jesus and I was healed; healed in places I didn’t even know I was wounded.

I left my old life and knew I never wanted to go back. I never wanted to be that dark person again.

Oddly enough God had a crazy plan for my life that would consist of meeting the man that was meant to be my husband the same month that began my transformation with God. He saw me at my darkest and lowest points and he saw me through my victories and breakthroughs. He saw me going through deliverance and inner healing. He saw me sobbing with snot coming in streams down my face; he saw me vomiting because my very body was rebelling against exposing and working through the pain of my own life. He saw my dark and then he saw my light and he loved me.

So my story of waiting is a little odd.

God transformed me at a school in Cyprus called Gateways Beyond and when I left that school I was an entirely different person, but I was also in love.

Do you know how confusing that was?

I was convinced that God would put me through a LONG period of singleness because I needed to pay some major penance for all my immorality, right? Because that’s so God who delights in punishing us for our mistakes? No. I should have known immediately that God had something different in store for me.

Within a year and a half of getting saved and meeting Jonathan, we were married. I don’t want to get into it all here, but if you are interested in reading our ENTIRE love story, you can do so HERE. But the main point is that God brought him into my life at ground zero, before I could construct walls, before I could block him out of certain areas. He and I began at my most vulnerable point and God knew that was what I needed to go into a marriage.

So there I was: the girl who had always been told she would always be too much for any man; that no one could truly love because her personality was too strong; God brought the perfect man for me. A strong, European man who was passionately in love with God, who challenges me and leads our marriage. Who encourages me to run hard after God and the things He has placed in my heart. Who has given me the gift of motherhood to the most beautiful little girl, the cutest little boy and another little boy on the way. Who has led us on an adventure that has landed us in another country contending for the Heavens to open over a region. And all of this in the last 5 years!

I’m living the life I never thought I wanted, but now know is everything I was meant to live and more.

You never know what can happen in your life and at what moment.

God works in suddenlies.

Literally one month I was partying, doing drugs and living a life of sexual immorality and the NEXT MONTH I had been radically changed. The next year I was married. The year after that I was a mother.

If there is one thing that I have experienced and am learning to embrace is that life changes quickly.

What may seem like an eternity waiting could be over in a blink of an eye.

So I guess that’s my encouragement to those in the Waiting Room. Trusting God and knowing that He has your very best in mind and that that very best may be the exact opposite of what you had in mind. That the life you are leading today may look entirely different than the life you will live a year from now.

The hardest part of waiting is being okay with that. Embracing the roller coaster that is our lives and saying, YES to the plans and purposes of a higher calling.

A grateful heart prepares the way for the Lord, yet you can be grateful for the rollercoaster ride the Lord is leading you on, but emotions are still a choice. You can hold on tight, knuckles white and clench your eyes closed or you can scream as loud as you can, raise both hands in the air and embrace the ride!

You want to enjoy the Waiting Room, not just survive it.

So here's to life and embracing even the most uncertain times of waiting, because as my life is testimony, there is a suddenly around the corner.

By: Destiny Vandeput
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Blog: http://www.belgexan.com/