The Ledger

By Jennifer Greene-Sullivan

There were 79 days when I did not know where my daughter was. Sophia had struggled with her mental health from the time she was fifteen, but by her senior year of high school, the struggle had become a crisis.

She ran away, and Chris and I had no idea where she was. Days became weeks, weeks had become months, and somehow life expected us to continue while a piece of our family, missing.

I have tried to find words for what those days felt like, but the closest I can come is this: I felt as though the organs had been stripped from my body, yet somehow I was expected to keep living. I still had responsibilities, people who needed me, and ordinary things that had to be done while absolutely nothing about my life felt ordinary. Every day carried the same question: Where is she?

Every now and then, Sophia would surface because someone had taken her to an emergency room in one county or another. Sometimes she was having seizures; other times, she was experiencing withdrawal from medication. For a brief moment, we would know where our daughter was, but before long, the uncertainty would begin again.

So would my prayers.

I went before the Lord in petition for my daughter, carrying a reality into my prayer closet that was often terrifying. Yet, while everything my natural eyes could see testified to the severity of our circumstances, something within me continued to believe that this was not the end of Sophia’s story. I believed Jesus could reach my daughter wherever she was, and I expected Him to turn her life around.

I didn’t know when it would happen or what the journey between there and here would look like. I certainly couldn’t see any evidence that circumstances were changing.

I only had to wait.

Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Those 79 days taught me something about the not seen part of faith because I had to trust God before I could see the evidence of His work.

Expectancy does not mean pretending our circumstances aren’t painful, nor does it mean telling God how or when He must answer our prayers. Instead, expectancy chooses to trust the character and faithfulness of God while standing in the middle of a reality that has not yet changed.

Today, Sophia is twenty-two, and the faithfulness of God never ceases to amaze me. My daughter did more than survive those terrible years; she thrives as a daughter, an employee, a college student, and, most importantly, as a child of God. When I look at her now, I can see some of what I could only believe then.

Making it through that season of motherhood required expectancy—day after day, prayer after prayer, crisis after crisis. I kept looking beyond what was happening in front of me toward the One I knew was faithful, even when I had no idea how long the waiting would last.

Maybe you are waiting today for an answer you cannot yet see. I cannot promise what God’s answer will look like or when it will come, but I can tell you what those 79 days taught me: Trust that God is still working, even when you cannot yet see the evidence.

Keep praying, keep trusting, and keep looking toward Him because a life of expectancy is a faith-filled life.

Because torn wings still fly.