Westside Stories Advent Podcast: Molly Delaney

In my particular season of life, there’s definitely this big picture posture of waiting while there’s also little pockets of waiting. Coming from a family where several of my family members are not Christians, there is always this waiting and longing for the Lord to do a new thing in their hearts and lives. I feel that way with several of my friendships and relationships with nonbelievers in my life. And then there’s also just the waiting that comes with being in a season of life where I don’t fully see where God is bringing me in my career, and in my singleness.

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The waiting has felt like a constant battle for hope. Waiting well has been marked by this constant day by day, sometimes moment by moment return to the Lord—for him to restore my hope and to restore the ability to hope honestly, to come to him and to ask again, and again, and again. Not just for him to meet those who I long to come to know Jesus, but also to meet me in what can become a hardened and pessimistic attitude.

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The Lord has been teaching me that there’s a way to wait well on him, that he has given me everything I need and equipped me with what he has called me to do. There’s a challenge there to not just wait for my circumstances to change, but to actually know God and glorify him and enjoy him. There’s a call to do that in the midst of my circumstances starting today. Jesus has come to give fullness of life to all of us, and that fullness of life is not bound by our circumstances.

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The Lord has used my community in huge ways to draw me back to the well of grace that doesn’t run out. It’s a day by day returning and seeking his face and not buying into the lies that I have to hide from him when I’m not waiting well.

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I think about wrestling with the Lord and to ultimately, day after day in our wrestling, find surrender. In the wrestling, the Lord meets me tenderly and allows me to soften my grip on my circumstances and on my control and my will. In softening that, I actually find the peace and the comfort that comes with being held by our good Father.

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- Molly Delaney