During the month of April some students at school were selling “wish bracelets” as a fundraiser for Austin King. Austin is a very courageous Pierce County High School student who has been battling cancer for the past several months. A “wish bracelet” is a very thin bracelet made of raffia with little beads weaved throughout the front. To wear one you have to tie it around your wrist. It is called a “wish bracelet” because you are to wear it until the bracelet falls off your wrist, and when that happens, your wish is supposed to come true.
When I decided that I wanted to buy a wish bracelet for Austin, I didn’t buy just one. I knew that the bracelets would remind me to pray for Austin, so I bought five of them. Most “wish bracelet” stories that I had heard of involved the bracelet falling off within a couple of weeks, so I took my five bracelets and got help tying them together around my wrist very tightly. Because I was still afraid that they would fall off right away, I even got some extra raffia and reinforced my bracelets together making them extra strong.
When my niece, Kassie, first saw all of my bracelets she said, “Aunt Kim, how many bracelets did you buy?” I replied very proudly, “Five of them.” She said, “They are never going to fall off!” I laughed and explained that I have some complicated wishes, so it might take a while for them to come true. I kind of laughed it off with her but now July is beginning, and my wish bracelets are still hanging on! Even though now just one single thread holds all five of them on my wrist, I have to wonder if Kassie was right. Just yesterday Kassie said again, “Aunt Kim, your still wearing those bracelets?”
Now I really don’t mind the bracelets being on my wrist since April. Surprisingly, I don’t even realize that I am wearing them all of the time. When I do notice them, they do remind me of Austin, and I say a prayer for him and his family. But also, these bracelets have become a reminder to me that sometimes it takes a long time for a person’s dreams and wishes to come true. Not everyone has wishes that can come true in a matter of weeks or even months. Sometimes it can take years for events to unravel and prayers to be answered. The hard part about having to wait on God is that you may begin to feel forgotten about, and often times you feel like you are literally hanging by a thread of hope.
Take Abraham and Sarah’s story in the Bible. God told Abraham that he would make him into a great nation, but how can a childless man become a great nation? It basically took twenty-five years for Abraham to have a son with his wife. What looked like a perfect dream with God’s blessing seemed to hang by a thread year after year as Sarah remained barren.
About nine years after God’s first conversation with Abraham, Sarah decided to take matters in her own hands and she convinced Abraham that the only way God could give him a child would be through her maidservant, Hagar. This was part of their custom when a woman was barren, so Abraham agreed to Sarah’s plan. If you know this story in Genesis, you know that Hagar gave Abraham a son, Ishmael. The birth of Ishmael did not solve all their problems but actually caused many new problems that Sarah did not see coming. Sarah began to feel jealous, angry, and bitter toward Hagar because she gave Abraham the son that Sarah couldn’t. Sometimes it’s like that. We think we see a perfect solution to a problem but with our limited vision, like Sarah, we just cannot anticipate all the new problems that our “perfect solution” will cause.
Time continued to pass for Abraham and about twenty-four years after their first conversation, God tells Abraham that he is going to give him a son through Sarah. Abraham was ninety-nine years old at this time, and Sarah was ninety. Even though people lived much longer back then, it is safe to say that both of them were middle aged and past child bearing years. When God told Abraham that Sarah would give him a son, the Bible says that Abraham fell face down and laughed. When Sarah overheard this conversation, she laughed also. I can just imagine that she thought, “Yeah, right. Like now I am going to have a baby, after all this time!”
I honestly don’t blame her for laughing. She had been hanging by a thread for over twenty-four years just waiting for a baby. I would bet that somewhere around the time Ishmael was born, she probably gave up hope. Now when it seems impossible for her to have a baby, God’s plan quickly unravels and she becomes pregnant. I just love God’s response to Sarah’s doubt in Genesis 18:14, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” God told Sarah, “You will have a son”……and she did.
It sure didn’t happen overnight. The plan took a long time to unravel. The story lines were tightly woven together, so tightly woven that it seemed that events would never loosen up. But God, he had the story under control the whole time. Twenty-five years of waiting, wondering, hoping, crying, doubting, and feeling forgotten. But not God. He never forgot for one moment about his promises to Abraham and Sarah. Although it took some time and they learned some hard lessons along the way, God did exactly what he said he would do.
If you find yourself feeling like Sarah, as if you are hanging by a single thread, take heart and know that you are not alone. Like mine, maybe your dreams and wishes are complicated. Maybe it takes longer for your prayers to be answered because God has got to unravel or tie up some loose ends someplace else in order to make things fall in place for you. I don’t know your situation, but I do know that this story in the Bible is true, and it totally proves to us that nothing is too hard for God. Even when we have that “Yeah, right” mentality and we doubt, God is still faithful to keep his promises.
