When You Cannot See the Answer

Reflection

Hagar's story reaches me differently as a mother.

Hagar and her son Ishmael were in the wilderness. They had been carrying water with them, but eventually the water ran out. From what Hagar could see, there was no more.

She believed her son was going to die. Overwhelmed with grief, she placed Ishmael some distance away because she could not bear to watch what she believed was about to happen.

This wasn't Hagar being negative. The water really was gone. Faith conversations can become hurtful when we make people feel as though acknowledging a genuine problem means they lack faith. It doesn't.

There are moments when you genuinely don't know what to do. I've had those moments. I've known what it feels like to look at circumstances and wonder how our family was going to make the next move. I've known what it is to focus so intensely on the problem that I couldn't yet see where the answer might come from.

But I've also lived long enough to look backward. And when I do, I see something. God has made a way for us every single time. Not always the way I expected. Not always without difficulty. But there has been a next step.

There was something we could do. Something we could sell. Someone we could ask. Something we could create. Something we had forgotten. An opportunity we hadn't considered. A resource we hadn't recognized.

There has been some oil. There has been a well. There has been a next step.