Divine Delays: Finding Confidence When You Feel Fear that is Approaching Despair

Everyday Miracles – Perservering & Remembering

We all have had a time in life when we are losing or have lost confidence. The hardest thing is to push through when reminders of past failure cloud your consciousness. What I know for sure: When all feels lost: remember how God has brought you through in the past.

I have a list I call “The Miracle List” and on it I have written all the miracles that God has performed in the past. When I feel discouraged or overwhelmed when the future seems unclear, I remind myself of those miracles and am reminded that ALL things are possible if we keep trusting!

I remember when I was in a battle with the federal government over my public health scholarship. It was a loan to pay my way through medical school if I return to work in a MD shortage area. When I signed up for it, I planned to go back to my home in Compton, Calif. Which was then a designated physician shortage area. By the time I finished my training the only spots available to pay back the loan with service were Guam or Kingman, Arizona. My husband and I had moved to WV with hopes of paying back our Public Health Scholarships as WV has physician shortage areas. Yet the government was adamant, either go to Guam or Kingman, Arizona or pay back $300,000. At that time the payback was three times the amount due at a high interest rate to discourage monetary payback versus service. I was despondent approaching despair. We pleaded with the government, put out petitions and even called the surgeon general who was a black female who had gone to Meharry Medical College. No budging! Apparently, there was a mass action lawsuit against the federal government, I wasn’t alone…others were caught in the same crises. I kept repeating the promises of Luke 1:37 that with “God NOTHING shall be impossible”. “ALL things are possible to him that believes.” “Ask and it will be given to you.” “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain.” Month after month for almost a year despite continual prayer it was a constant answer of NO. I was experiencing fear approaching despair but kept believing, hoping, and praying.

I attended a board review course at Harvard University and remember asking God to manifest a specific miracle. I was already stressed studying for my boards and the financial threat of a Public Health Service Corp with approval for my placement in WV to pay back my loan with service. Midway through the last day of the review course I got a phone call with a DC area code. To my amazement the caller said, “Dr. Walker, we are pleased to inform you for the first time in the history of the Public Health Service Corp. they have reversed the decision and you can pay back your loan with service in WV. “Tears ran down my cheeks with praise and gratitude. It was ABSOLUETLY clear that it was NO body but God who provided that miracle!

God delays answers allowing a situation to approach total darkness so that we know that it is only God that brought about a miracle. Today, no matter what you are facing, you like me may be praying for a miracle. May we keep believing, trusting, and expecting a miracle. A seemingly no response from God is a “divine delay” reminding us that God has got it! Keep Trusting! We must stand on the promise in Romans 8:28 that “All things work together for God” even when things are happening around us that make no sense. May we hold up each other as well as ourselves and remember that despite the impossibility of the situation that we are reminded in the Psalms to HOPE CONTINUALLY as we put our trust in God and praise him more and more. “Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.” No matter what you are facing, may we forever be reminded even in the seemingly most hopeless, darkest times, that a seemingly no answer is a divine delay. Hold on and replay fear with faith by speaking over and over the promises of God.