God Never Gets the Address Wrong

I’ve lived in this neighborhood for nearly ten years and will never forget how we got here. At the last minute God opened the door to this house. We had often invited collegians and other groups into our previous home and dreamed of a large gathering space for them. While house-hunting I was pregnant and also had a toddler in tow, and felt so tired. But my husband coaxed, “Just look at one more -- I think this is the one.”  

And so it was! One look at the large living room and the abundant built-in storage space and I was sold. We moved in on my thirtieth birthday.  

We got settled that winter and then had our second baby, and eighteen months later, our third. I was tired all ​the time, trying to be a wife and mom and minister to college students on our local campus. Though my life was full, I felt something was missing.  I just knew that God had placed us in this​ ​house on this​ street in this​ neighborhood as his ambassadors.  I often sat at my dining table reading my Bible and gazing out the front window. The three houses I could see were inhabited by amazing older Christian women. There was not a young mom or a child as far as I could see in my neighborhood. Most of my neighbors were original home owners who had already raised their children. And here I sat, three kids under the age of four and no energy to go anywhere except the grocery store or to meet students on our local college campus. “God, why did you put me here?” I would cry out. “Did you get the address wrong?”  I longed to meet peers and talk about God and even lead Bible studies right where I was.  

But it didn’t happen. I became friends with the older women in the neighborhood who kept their grandkids; they loved us so well during a trying season. When my oldest child started school my heart leapt because I met other moms. Houses started selling around us and a few younger families moved in. I was grateful for the new friendships, but no matter how close we became, many of these women had no desire to talk about spiritual things. Bible studies: nope.  Book clubs:  nope. And so I would look out my window and weep some more.  I recall complaining to a dear Christian friend, “I just feel like God has created me to live by faith, yet he’s not giving me any opportunities to!”  Only recently have I seen what  God was really up to. 

For nearly ten years he was molding me. He was forging in me something I didn’t even know I lacked: the ability to just BE. The ability to not be productive in the ways I wanted to be. The ability to form deep relationships with people unlike myself. He was working beneath the surface to  grow valuable fruit deep inside me. God was paving the way for a harvest of new believers--women I’ve known and loved a long time who would need a real friend to introduce them to the Savior. 

Maybe you can relate. You long to bloom where you’re planted and think you know what that looks like.  Keep seeking God.  Keep praying for your neighbors and coworkers. Keep believing that God is growing deep roots beneath the surface.  

Keep choosing to believe that you’re where God wants you to be. God never gets the address wrong.

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