Halfway through a six-month home assignment, I received a call from the social worker at the independent living apartment complex where my parents resided. Mom’s dementia was deepening, and she needed additional support. Neither parent wanted to move in with a family member. Fear crept in, threatening to push peace aside. 

When the call came, I was standing in a church parking lot. With a heavy heart, I stepped inside the church where I had grown up and first learned about Jesus. The church where many now elderly members had been the Sunday school teachers and youth workers who had introduced me to Jesus. I had placed my faith in Jesus at age seven and was later baptized here. Many people attending the global workers’ conference had known my mother years ago. They had walked with our family through my father’s heart attack and death when I was just fourteen years old. 

As I struggled with questions about whether we should return to our country of service, these precious individuals began to pray for wisdom and clarity. The fact that they did not try to give advice or answer the question for me spoke volumes. These supporters would pray us through and trust God to lead. I’ve wanted to do the same for others. 

Aging parents and their needs are among the top reasons global workers return to their passport country. No instruction manual can provide an equation to determine the right course of action in such situations While I prayed, I clung to James 1:5, reading it in various translations. The Amplified Bible delivers this message; “If any of you lacks wisdom to guide him through a decision or circumstance, he is to ask of our benevolent God, who gives to everyone generously.”   

Early in our marriage, my husband gifted me a J.B. Phillips New Testament. Phillips shares the verse this way, “And if, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem, he has only to ask God-who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty.”  

God invites us to seek His perfect wisdom.