Today I have my head in the clouds. While reading through the Old Testament, I realized how often God appeared in the form of a cloud. In Exodus and Numbers alone, there are over forty references to the cloud of God’s Presence. I found that rather fascinating.
But of course, I’ve always been fascinated by puffy white clouds. I used to lay in my yard and watch them drift peaceably overhead. Perhaps the reason I find comfort in clouds is that God’s Presence still remains in them. Though the most mention you will find of clouds is in the earlier books of the Old Testament, there are still various references throughout the rest of the Bible. Psalm and Isaiah talk of how God rides on the clouds. In 2 Chronicles, the glory of the Lord once again filled the temple in the form of a cloud. A cloud contained the Voice that said, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased,” at the moment of Jesus’ baptism. And we are told throughout the Gospels and in Revelation that Jesus will return on a cloud. Clouds are a daily reminder of His Presence in our world. Yet we so often fail to see God’s Presence in these familiar miracles.
In Genesis 9, God sends a rainbow as a promise to Noah that He will never again flood the whole earth. We remember the rainbow, but we miss three very important words quoted in that passage of scripture: “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”
Perhaps in our fear of global floods, we missed the most important promise God provided on that day. Yes, He promised that He would never again flood the earth, but He also promised us His Presence. While the rainbow is an occasional reminder, the cloud is a constant reality. God’s Presence is right here in this moment.
When I look out the window, I can see Him hovering over the mountains, but more importantly, I’m reminded of the way He has enveloped my heart and promised His Presence to me.
“Do you want to marry a pastor?”
I’ve avoided reading the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye for years now. I finally broke down and picked it up, thinking I would suffer through it “for research purposes.” Why the negative attitude? I had previously been misinformed by several people who read it that the book was about courting.
My dad is a carpenter by trade. As I grew up, I spent a considerable amount of time at some of his job sites watching him turn an empty room into a masterpiece. I remember one time he recruited Mom and I to help him with a huge tile job. I walked into a basement to find what was, without a doubt, the most unusual floor covering I had ever seen. There were seven different colors of eighteen-inch square tiles spread across the floor in no particular order. “There’s no pattern,” I observed, somewhat shocked.
Yesterday, I had one of those days. You know, the kind of day where you fume about stupid stuff and think things like, “I’m not going to get married for the next hundred bajillion years because I don’t even want to deal with this junk.” It took moving 450 miles away from home for me to realize that guy/girl friendships are difficult to come by. I don’t know if that fact makes me want to hug my old guy friends and apologize for all the years I’ve taken them for granted, or slap them in the face and yell at them for making me believe that our relationships were normal. I think what I felt yesterday was a combination of the two. I could have walked right up to one of them and shouted, “Thanks for being amazing, jerk.”
It has been over ten months since I’ve prayed a heartfelt, in-depth prayer for my future husband. That may seem crazy to you as it does seem to go against every book you’ll find on waiting for Prince Charming. I thought I was crazy myself, at first. But it can’t be any more crazy than how crazy I felt back when I was faithfully praying for my knight in shining armor. I didn’t stop praying because I got the impression that the man I will one day marry is above falling, but because I know how prone I am to fall myself. When I was consistently praying for my future husband, I was constantly thinking about him. And because I thought of him so often, I got to a point where I wasn’t content with living without him. That’s why I dropped the specific prayers. That’s why I shredded the list of things I wanted in a husband. Maybe it’s the novelist in me, but when I write a guy out on paper, he becomes real and eventually becomes all I think about. But he shouldn’t be all I think about during this stage of my life. That’s why when it comes to this delicate subject of waiting, I decided to, well, stop waiting. If I’m going to live in this moment here and now, I can’t be dwelling on a future with him. 
Beyond Waiting 