The God of Suddenly Moments

Engaged on January 1st, 2025

Over 15 years ago, I got this revelation understanding of the Suddenly Moments of God. It came during a season of waiting, and at the time, I truly disliked waiting!! During that season, a mentor friend was in Ireland over from America. As I complained to him, he shared with me his own experiences and how he used to hate seasons of slowness. As he began to understand the ebbs and flows of life, he then started to leverage those seasons because breakthroughs and busyness were always on the horizon.

I also heard a well-known Bible teacher say most of life happens in the mundane, so if we are always looking for breakthroughs, we will miss most of life!

Taking the discontentment I struggled with to God, not seeing fast enough the vision that I felt God had placed within my heart, and simultaneously listening to the wisdom of those older and more experienced than myself, I began to change. There is a reason God is the I AM, and not the I WAS or I WILL BE. God is in the NOW, and all the grace we need from Him is found in the moment...not off in the distance!

A number of you reading this have followed me and my family's journey through loss and grief since Rachel passed away on October 28th, 2023. You have supported us through prayer and friendship. And like in Isaiah 66:7-8, where God first spoke to me through His word about "And Suddenly" moments, God has done that again:

"Before she was in labor, she gave birth; before her pain came, she delivered a male child. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children."

In one day, the children of Abraham, slaves in Egypt, God transformed into a nation! The slave mentality took another 40 years to be worked out of them before they would truly trust God, what He said about them, and their purpose and enter into the Promised Land. Nevertheless, God did a quick work of creating a nation from a multitude of misguided misfits! If you know anything about life, you also know there is always a story within a story. Years of preparation, character development, and relationships that need to be formed are all happening behind the scenes and beneath the surface, while nothing appears to be growing above ground.

That is what has been happening in both my life and Jenny's. God saw the loss that would occur in both our lives. Rachel in mine. Robb in hers.

I do not believe that it was God's will in either instance for the premature death of our spouses by disease, but God is a redemptive God, that can not only work all things together for good if we allow Him (Romans 8:28), but He also, as I heard shared last year while sitting in a class at Charis Bible College, "God can make Plan B better than Plan A." That simply means that God not only redeems, but He seeks to take us to higher and higher ground.

Rachel's and Robb's hearts burned with a desire to see new ministries birthed. Jenny and I have shared some of the notes and dreams written down. Things we had, they had, and dreaming that was done together. In the natural, those dreams appeared to go into the grave with Rachel and Robb..unfulfilled. But faith does not work like that! And now, Jenny and I are discussing, praying, and believing this is the season for those things spoken of and written down to begin to manifest! For such a time as this!

If God can take two people, who have experienced some of the deepest and lowest valleys a person can walk through...the loss of a spouse, and with that occurring at midlife, the loss of vision and purpose...and turn the whole thing around by bringing them together...God can work in your circumstances!!!!

Jenny and I will wed this year and are dreaming the dreams of God again! For us. For our kids. For our friendships. For our future. For that, we are extremely humbled and gracious! It brings us often to tears! It is all God! And for that, we give glory!

Continue to watch this space as God's dreams begin to unfold. We are so blessed and amazed by people's continual support and prayers...especially in those seasons when we felt we had little to offer but the cup of grace each day that sustained us, keeping us going in life!

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." -Jeremiah 29:11-13