Have you ever had a dream and thought, “yes, it’s finally happening,” only to find yourself caught in the “in-between” time? It is the time in-between vision and reality. You are at the airport, maybe even on the plane, but there has been a delay. You know you will be going but you don’t know how long the delay will last.
We faced a big delay. We have this roaster but what are we going to do with it? We have a house but it is small and won’t fit inside. Lance is working two jobs to support our family and has limited time. I have come home to take care of our son so that Lance can focus on the business so we have limited finances. We were trying to get pregnant and faced a year delay then once we finally got pregnant we traumatically lost the baby at almost 5 months. We were in a holding pattern without any idea of when the delay would end.
Finally I found a picnic gazebo on sale and we could take a small step. Lance constructed a floor and we put the gazebo up for the roaster as a temporary shelter to see if the roaster could even be repaired. He did a massive clean out of the machine and found the part that was broken. After many failed attempts to contact the company about the broken roaster part he realized he would have to find someone to custom-make the part. So where do you find a coffee roaster repair man? We don’t know. Delayed again.
It is in the in-between time that we are so tempted to give up. It hurts to hope: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12). We are tempted to jump ship on our dream and go to plan B. But this is the place where faith, determination, perseverance, and character are also built. This is the place where our story is built. Luckily we didn’t give in to the temptation to give up in the in-between time. Our story doesn’t end here. Our breakthrough was coming.
We lost our baby Judah at 5 months. We are grateful for the excellent care from Duke Hospital. That is part of why we love giving there.
