“She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes….” –Lord Byron

She is tall and slim…spiritual, funny, irreverent, and serious. With her red-gold hair and her sea-green eyes, she is all that is good and right with the world. She is twenty-nine, a Christian, and single. She is all I wish I had been. She is my daughter, and no woman could ask for a better friend.

Helen is a successful, advanced engineering student, studying classes that I can’t spell or pronounce. She is faithful in action and in spirit. She seeks the Lord every day, in scripture and in service. She loves to cook. She is creative. She is pure magic with children. She would make a wonderful wife and mother, but Helen is not looking for a husband. Helen is waiting on God. We forget that. We forget to wait on Him.

Helen was very popular in high school. With a hilarious sense of humor, she can mimic any voice or accent, but Helen’s humor is usually directed at herself. She has made many mistakes in her young life. She is not perfect. However, what she lacks in perfection, Helen makes up for in unadulterated, hard work. She wasn’t particularly religious in high-school, nor afterwards, but somewhere around the age of twenty, Helen made a covenant. She drew a line in the sand, and she dared the enemy to cross. It was a bitter struggle for Helen, trying to battle the enemy on her own power. By the time that she reached her twenty-third birthday, Helen realized that she could not continue her battle alone. And that is where Helen came into the presence of God, and where she began to submit her will to His.

We try to put God into a box and give him limits, but He has no limits, and He doesn’t fit where we want Him to. God goes where He will, and He blesses whom He will, and if we find ourselves in the mud, He’s usually there before us…waiting to lift us up. God wooed Helen. He courted Her, and in His Word, Helen saw a love story — her love story, of the Lover of her soul and His bride.

In the Song of Solomon, Helen saw a personal wooing and a promise of the Beloved, Jesus, for each individual. Somehow we Christians can believe that our Savior, willingly dragged a cross, up a rocky hill, after being beaten nearly to death, for all of us, as a group. However, Christ did not die for “us.” He died for ME…and He died for YOU. Jesus died, was buried and rose again — for each of us, and if there was only one person on the earth, He still would have come and shed His blood for that individual.

Why is it that we can’t believe that Christ is the perfect lover of our soul? Gentle. Wooing.

Are we embarrassed? Uncomfortable? Sadly, even among Christians, I think we confuse “love” with “lust.” I think we believe the world, and we forget the Spirit — the Holy Spirit. I think we reach for momentary pleasure, and we starve ourselves of true happiness. I think we, on this tiny planet, are starved for love. Again, I think that we Christians have grown to believe the world.

I am Helen’s mother. God took me, a woman raised with a distorted religious view and two violent marriages – divorced, alone, penniless, with no means of support, thrown out onto the street with three kids and no clue, and God met me where I landed. From nowhere, He brought me, and He formed me into a new creation! His creation!

He transformed my life. He rescued me from a religious cult. He saved my children, and He brought me together with the love of my life, my husband, Louie. He took three abused and hurting little girls, and he found a godly man to be their father — a real father! God did all this! Not once, with all my figuring, and thinking, and planning, and all my mistakes did I find happiness. Only God could have brought me to where He was all the time…waiting for me, at the bottom of my life. He lifted me from the mud, and He brought me into His Kingdom, the Kingdom of God.

THIS IS THE MIRACLE! I, now, belong to God! Oh, I loved Him with a passionate love, but I loved Him as a stranger, reading about a person I did not know. Someone, whom I desired to know, but DID NOT KNOW! Praise God, that He knew the difference. God knew that once I began to accept His grace, I would find my first love, Jesus.

It has been over twenty years. I’m no longer young. I’m no longer a beautiful, young thing, but, my husband, the love of my life; and, Jesus, the Lover of my soul look at me, and I know that I am beautiful. I walk in happiness, because of my personal, individual, wooing, loving God, and the man I should have waited for, but didn’t. I should have waited on God, and I did not. I should have waited for my husband, but I did not.

So, you can see why I say that Helen walks in beauty. It is easy to see the obvious. She is lovely. She is brilliant. But Helen’s radiance, her beauty, comes from deep within, where God dwells. Now, at 57, as I look at myself, as I count every pore, numbering every line, and knowing that my youth is gone, I still know that I am beautiful, because I see myself through the love of my husband, and I see myself through the eyes of Jesus.

So, my message is simple – WAIT ON GOD! I cannot say that loud enough. Seek Him. Seek Him in His Word. Seek Him in prayer. Let NO ONE, and nothing come between you and Him. You have free will. You have the choice. When you stumble and fall , REACH UP! Christ is there to lift you up. Keep your eyes on His light! If that Light ever moves, YOU are going in the wrong direction! If you think this world will ever give you happiness, YOU’RE STANDING IN THE WRONG LINE!

JESUS. He brings peace, if you let Him, even in your turmoil, and Jesus brings Victory, even in defeat. Lean on Him. Trust in Him. WAIT ON GOD! Go about your daily life — school, work, play. Put your hand in His. Don’t worry about tomorrow, and don’t try to make tomorrow become today.

I promise that if you wait on God, you will be persecuted. You will be considered strange to others. You will be given ungodly advice, sometimes by godly people, who confuse “opinion” for the Holy Spirit. You will feel weary. You will feel lonely, sometimes; but God will never fail you, and He will NEVER leave you alone.

Do not settle for the world’s view. Do not settle for the world’s best. Wait on God, for HIS best. I did not wait on God, when I was young and beautiful. I am learning from Helen. I am learning to wait on God, so that I, too, may walk in His beauty.

Jaye Lewis jlewis@smyth.net

Jaye Lewis is an award winning Christian writer who lives and writes in the beautiful southern highlands of southwestern Virginia. Jaye is currently writing her first book, a collection of memoirs from her life, reflecting the power of God’s grace over the human spirit. The title of the book is Entertaining Angels. Jaye can be emailed at jlewis@smyth.net