Outside the City

Macayla is playing on the floor and looking through a book about Jonah. Jonah the prophet of God who was sent to the city of Nineveh to deliver God's message. At the end of 2004, we had come to a point where God began to open the doors for us to start back in seminary. Through prayer, Jenny and I came to the conclusion that it was time to set things in motion. We put our home on the market and began comparing the seminaries we had narrowed our search down to. To my surprise, God made it abundantly clear that we were to go to New Orleans for seminary. My biggest hang up with New Orleans was the crime rate. How could I protect my family in a city where the murder rate was ten times the national average? I feared that such a decision was putting my family in danger, but Jenny reminded me that I ultimately can only protect her and the children so much because, in short, I'm not God. So, in February we submitted to the call to New Orleans and set all of the paperwork in motion. In March our home sold and in April Macayla started having seizures.
After we ran the whole spectrum of tests that could account for seizures, Macayla was normal (accept for the falling and seizures of course). Our neurologist also shared that the cause for epilepsy cannot be found half the time and the only choice is to control the seizures. At that point, New Orleans actually appeared to be promising for Macayla. There was an epilepsy center there with the Oshners Children's Hospital that seemed to have much to offer for someone like Macayla. So we went. We submitted in obedience to what God had directed us to do. We pulled up stakes and moved into a third-floor apartment on the seminary campus.
But hurricane Katrina sent us back to South Carolina two weeks later. Like most people, we thought it would be over quickly, but the flooding made that impossible. We knew it would be August 2006 before we would get back down there. But then...Macayla. During our time in exile from NO we discovered Macayla's true condition, Battens. What a relief to finally know what was causing the seizures, but how horrible it is to know what is coming.
Jonah was a prophet who was told to go to a violent city he didn't want to go to. After some rebellion and prayer, he finally went and did what God commanded. But Jonah had expected God to act after the message was delivered. The message was, "Forty days and Nineveh will fall." It was NOT "Nineveh will fall unless you repent." No, Nineveh was supposed to fall. So Jonah delivered the message and sat outside the city to watch the fireworks. But the fireworks never came because Nineveh repented. God had not acted like Jonah expected. Jonah was angry, so angry he wanted to die. I did what God wanted. I went to a wicked city after rebellion and prayer, but God has not acted as I would have expected. (Of course, I wasn't going to deliver a message of judgment, but to go and learn to share a message of hope.) So here I am. Outside the city wondering what God is up to. But I spoke to a man who recently lost his little infant girl suddenly. She died in her crib. Listening to him and his story made me realize that I stay too focused on what I think God should be doing. Instead, maybe I should be focused on what God is ACTUALLY doing.