The 7-Year Miracle

Have you ever had a hope hurt so badly you couldn't pray for it anymore? Do you know the deafening silence that follows your "amen" night after night, year after year?

Take a journey with me through our last 7 years...

The battle to renew my South African visa began in 2014. People around the world prayed for breakthrough with us. We did everything we knew to do. We persevered and stayed positive, clinging to our hope in Jesus.

By 2017, I was on the South African "blacklist" and the "top immigration lawyer in South Africa" (who had received large amounts of our money) was in prison. The blacklist meant I could not travel and was at risk of permanent deportation from South Africa. Our family faced permanent separation. A prayer we are still waiting on is Lifa's documentation. I faced not being able to stay in South Africa, and he can't leave.

By the time 2018 came around, hoping got heavy. I was running out of speed, so Chris maintained the pace for us both. The amazing people around us kept praying and asking for updates. There were never updates. Instead of hoping for things to change, I started hoping people would stop asking.

Chris and I fasted sugar, dairy, gluten, processed foods, and several other things for a year as we pressed into praying for that visa. One night, while very pregnant with Benjamin and cooking a Thanksgiving meal for 60 people, I filled my hurt with pumpkin pie filling. Not because I wanted the dessert (although it was DELICIOUS). Because I wanted God to know, spoon after spoon, that I didn't hope anymore. I didn't believe anything was going to change, although it was impossible for us to remain in our circumstances. I cried as I confessed it to Chris the next morning - not because I broke our fast, but because I couldn't see things being different than they were.

In 2019, our new lawyer was making things happen. I dared to hope again and prayed boldly that God would let me see my grandmother one more time before she went to heaven. Papers were moving. Things were happening.

My paperwork was on the top of the stack on the desk of the top guy in home affairs when the country went on lockdown in March of 2020. My grandmother died that week as well. Everything started going backward from there.

A few months ago, I reached out to our lawyers for news after home affairs had been closed for a year. I felt that familiar, panicked desperation when we realized my mom wasn't going to get to come for Benjamin's 2nd birthday like we had hoped for. They still haven't met! Our lawyer's news was that some senior officials in home affairs had passed away from COVID, some were in jail for laundering and others had "disappeared" in a scandal. None of their jobs were being replaced, so I should "expect delays".

Expect delays.

I thought hope was expecting break-throughs. I thought it was staying positive and moving forward. Our story has been backsliding for 7 years.

Last week, without any of my prayers and an army of other peoples'…

I WAS REMOVED FROM THE BLACKLIST.

I AM FREE!

I am free to apply for a legal visa! I am not at risk of deportation or being separated from my family! I AM FREE!

I am free to drop the weight of the unknowns, the possibilities not worth speaking about. I am free to stop dreading that part of conversations, trying to fit 7 years of disappointing details into small talk. I am free.

I am free to hope pure hope. Not because I'm off the blacklist, and not because I clung fast and hard to Jesus to run the race marked out for me. No - I ate pumpkin pie filling and spent a lot of time crying on the bathroom floor rather than praying.

I am free to hope real hope because an army of people around the world hoped for me when I couldn't. My husband believed when I didn't. People prayed when I didn't. People paid the lawyer fees when they seemed to be going nowhere.

We are still on a journey before we are able to travel, but we are different because of the road He let us walk. He let us need you. He let us face true loss and disappointment, just like Jesus did when He was here, so we could walk with others in theirs. He let us learn that hope doesn't float; it doesn't always keep your head up. But it is the anchor to our soul.

He let us learn that it's ok if you get tired of hoping because someone can hope for you. Hoping is not a super power or merit badge. It's a right we have because Jesus died for us. It's not graded and it's not designed to be done solo.

I am free because of Jesus.

Thank you for being His hands, holding hope for me, and walking the road with us.

I am free because He heard your prayers in my dark nights.

Coffee and babyccino celebration with the Jammer!