Looking at the ocean always reminds me how small I am. How big God is. How the Maker of the sea can make anything. Our trip to the ocean at the end of October has become a family tradition. Our harvest is over. We’re ready to play. But this year it was supposed to rain.

Hard rain for days.

“It’s going to be too stormy to do anything this weekend at the coast,” said my dad looking at the weather forecast.

“Well, it’s the only weekend we can go so we’re going,” I told him.

“Then pray for good weather,” said Dad with a doubtful smile. “That’s a big storm coming, but God seems to hear your prayers.” What Dad was really saying is, God seems to give you what you want when you pray. You get the yeses. 

But that hasn’t always been true. God used to give me no’s more than yeses when I prayed. And here’s why: I wasn’t seeking God’s will years ago when I prayed. I didn’t read the Bible. And I didn’t really know Him. All my prayers were about me.

About what I wanted.

In 1999, I wanted a divorce. I sat in church praying for a divorce, and God said, “no.” I heard His “no” so clearly. You will love your husband and I will love you, I heard God saying as I prayed. That love seemed so impossible at the time. The only thing that saved me from throwing away my marriage was that I wanted God more than I wanted a divorce so I obeyed the Lord and laid down all my pride and loved my husband instead of leaving him.

My dad was right about the storm at the ocean. It came and poured down rain, but after the rain, the sun came out. Against all odds, against every weather forecast for Saturday at the sea, the sun came out in a blaze of glory.

 

But rain or shine didn’t matter to our boys. These boys we never would have had if I’d disobeyed God and gotten that divorce I wanted. God gave us love instead of the wreckage of divorce by saying no to my prayer. I spent the following years learning how to pray God’s way instead of my own way. And during this time, while our girls were teenagers, one of my greatest prayers was that our daughters would marry men who loved Jesus.

But when they were 18 and 20 years old, the girls turned to me and said, “We don’t want to date Christian boys. Sorry, Mom.”

Actually, I don’t remember them even saying sorry. I just remember being distraught by this sassy declaration from our sweet daughters. I won’t go into the whys of this, only the how I felt about it. God had become everything to me. I’d embraced Christianity with all my heart. Christ had not only saved my soul, He’d saved my marriage and held our family together when it was falling apart, so hearing my daughters say they didn’t want Christian boyfriends really upset me.

We were at family camp at the time. Shortly after our girls informed me of this, I was talking to a young, red-haired pastor with a slight red beard. With tears in my eyes, I told this young pastor our daughters didn’t want to date Christian boys. I will never forget his confident smile. “What does God want for your daughters?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

This led us into a conversation about God. That young, red-haired pastor deeply loved God. It was all over his face, in every word he said. As we talked, in my heart, I cried out to God, please bring our daughters a young man like this who loves God! I don’t care what the girls want. I care what You want, God. Please give our daughters what you want. 

I was learning being a Christian wasn’t about what I wanted. It was about what God wanted. I was learning to pray God’s will not only for my own life, but for the lives of my children.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know the past few years have been hard for our Lacy. “Relationships are like a walk in the park. Jurassic Park,” she posted on her Instagram feed a few months ago. I’m sure many young adults feel this way. Dating today is hard. Maybe it’s always been hard.

With each broken relationship, I have wept with Lacy. To love we must be vulnerable and being vulnerable often leads to getting hurt. And I was so tired of seeing our youngest daughter get hurt.

God, it’s so easy for You to bring Lacy the love she longs for. You made the heavens and the earth and the raging sea. Please help our girl. Please bring a young man who loves You to love our Lacy. But not my will, Your will be done, Lord.

Your will be done, has become my daily prayer. Not just regarding Lacy, but every prayer I pray now, I finish with this verse.

I’m not sure when God’s will became more precious than my own. Perhaps the day I decided I wanted God more than I wanted a divorce. A flood of healing hit my life when I surrendered my will and embraced the will of God sixteen years ago.

I think Lacy would tell you the same thing. When she finally told God she was done doing it her way, the healing came, the love she so longed for came. I wish I could tell you the whole story of all God did to make this happen, but it’s not my story to share, it’s Lacy story.

But really, in the end, it’s God’s story. Because when you belong to the Lord, your life is meant to glorify Him.

I asked Lacy if I could share a little more of the story and she said sure. This past summer, Scott and I walked into church so discouraged because we’d spent the past several years praying for Lacy to fall in love with a boy who truly loved Jesus and it just wasn’t happening. Our oldest daughter had married a wonderful Christian boy while still in college, which came with a testimony of God’s grace too, but Lacy had gone through some real heartbreak.

So we walked into church and headed for the row we always sit in. Scott usually goes right to the middle of the row and settles there, but this Sunday, a man was sitting where Scott always sits. Quietly, Scott settled in beside the man and I sat beside Scott. We know nearly everyone who sits near us in church, but I’d never seen this man before. Without really looking at him, I bowed my head in prayer. Please, Lord, help Lacy. Help us. Please bring her a boy who loves you… When I opened my eyes, I noticed the bracelets on the man’s wrist beside Scott. A beaded bracelet with a cross. It dawned on me this man was young. I looked up and saw a red beard and in that moment, the Lord whispered to me, I have heard your cry and have kept my promise…

In a flash, I saw the young red-haired, red-bearded pastor at family camp who so loved the Lord. In that instant, I remembered my cry to God, Please Lord, bring a young man like this for our daughters. I elbowed Scott and whispered in his ear, “Don’t let that young man leave here without meeting him.”

Scott looked at me sideways. “Introduce yourself to this boy. Find out who he is,” I whispered over the worship music.

After church, Scott spoke with the young man and also prayed with him about his future. In the car, we were both beyond excited. Here was a young man who loved Jesus and he needed a wife. We immediately began praying for Lacy to be that wife if it was the Lord’s will. When we told Lacy about this young man, she wasn’t excited at all. In fact, she got mad at us. “I’m not interested in your man with a beard,” she snapped. “Please mind your own business!”

“You are our business, you’re our daughter, we love you,” I told Lacy with tears in my eyes. Scott was really upset too. We kept praying every day for God to change Lacy’s heart, and to be with that young man at church working on his heart.

A few weeks later, we were finally able to introduce Lacy to the young man at church. During the introduction, Jake grinned, but Lacy had the funniest look on her face, then she bolted from the church without saying a word. “Well, that didn’t go well,” Scott said in the car.

Later that day, Lacy came by the house on her way to work. “I just stopped by to apologize to you both,” she said, looking very sheepish. “I’m such a jackass. That boy with the beard at church is really handsome.”

“Now we can invite Jake to dinner,” I said to Scott as soon as Lacy left for work. So we did. Again and again that summer, we invited Jake to Sunday dinner. He kept telling us no, but he also said, “Don’t give up on me.” We suspected Jake was working out his own stuff just like Lacy was this past summer. We waited and we prayed and finally, Jake came to dinner in September.

The rest of the story is Lacy’s to tell.

So when the sun came out at the ocean this past weekend, I snapped this picture of Lacy and Jake. The truth is their love story really isn’t about them.It’s about the faithfulness of God’s love for his children.

God measures his children’s love for Him in obedience. It’s often obedience that brings God’s yeses to our prayers. You will never go wrong praying God’s will for your life. You won’t always be blessed with God’s yeses, but I’ve learned God’s no’s are sometimes a greater blessing than his yeses. God’s no’s protect us from what we do not know.

I didn’t know that God’s “no” to my prayer for a divorce would bring four more amazing little boys into my life. Sons that give Scott and me such joy these days. I didn’t know that God’s “no” would restore my marriage. I didn’t know, God’s “no” would grant me the love I so desperately longed for when my life seemed so loveless in 1999. I didn’t need a divorce back then. I needed God.

When I finally let God love me, really love me, and I learned to love Him in return, love exploded in my life.

When God answers your prayers, He always gives you his best answer. Sometimes it’s yes, sometimes it’s no. God really does know what’s best. So trust Him.

Here’s Jake and Scott watching the kids play in a tidal pool after the sun came out. Of course Lacy is down there playing in the pool with her little brothers. And below is all the fun the kids had in the rain.