Answered prayers are sometimes long in coming

First it's important to know I love the white sands of a beach. I can sit for hours just watching the waves move back and forth quietly bringing water in and out in a rhythmic pattern. I marvel at how God set that in motion in the beginning and the waters still flow in that pattern God created long ago.

Back in the mid-80's Dane and I made a one-day trip to Key West to visit a relative. We were returning from a three-week journey to The Dominican Republic to serve with a missionary couple from the church Dane and I ministered to in Illinois. I hadn't seen the Florida Keys before. The waters were breathtaking and the beaches so beckoning.

But............time was short - just enough time to travel down, visit and travel back and catch a flight home. One beach in particular caught my eye. It looked just like the postcards and ads so often enticing people to come wiggle their toes in the white sands. No time to stop at the beach. I was disappointed, angry and sullen at God, asking if I'd ever get to spend time on a Florida beach.

Yesterday I spent several hours sitting on a beach in the Florida Keys, watching the waves move in and out just as they have since The Garden. I had plenty of time to enjoy the warmth, the water and the wonder of it all.

Today as I drove back from a quick run to the grocery store, my eye caught that very beach I enjoyed yesterday and God reminded me that was the very beach I mourned not being able to visit some 30 years ago. I was reminded that God is faithful, even in the small and sometimes very earthly requests I ask of Him. It's been a long time coming, but here I am resting on the very beach I longed for many years ago.

God is faithful in His answers to me though they don't always come in my timing and not always as I've asked and there are yet some that He hasn't answered at all. I'm still waiting. I'll sit awhile and wiggle my toes in the white sand while I believe, trust and hope.