Waiting

Welcome to the latest installment of my crazy, scattered life.  One would think I might be able to make it at least a week without new content, but not so much lately.  I imagine it's all the craziness of the "close of school" requirements--you know, the ones that aren't part of your normal routine that are just piled on top of all the normal stuff.  That's probably what's depleting my brain cells.  Well, that, and the two year old person (whom I love dearly) that is stealing my pillow, along with my sleep, these days.

To recap, I've had a flat tire and broken my cell phone twice, along with my typical losing jewelry and mates to shoes, within the last month.  So it shouldn't be a surprise that I got ready to leave school this afternoon and couldn't find my [one and only set of] car keys.  Well, technically, I did find them.  They just weren't too useful to me where they were--locked in the backseat of my car.  I texted my husband that I was calling a locksmith, and that I would go ahead and pack my bags for my mom's (joking, of course), when he reminded me calmly (love his merciful self) that our roadside assistance would handle it for free.  And just as an aside, apparently it is not acceptable or wise to lock your car from the door rather than the remote, even if your hands are so full you can't physically hit the "lock" button on the remote.  That's what elbows are for, right?

So there I was at 3:30, with errands to run, with an hour long wait to get into my car.  This is the moment that should have induced stress and frustration, but wildly enough I was content to sit at a picnic table in the shade and wait.  Things have been so crazy and non-stop lately that just sitting there was a welcome change.  There was a warm breeze and birds were singing, and I got to have a nice long phone conversation with an old friend.  All things that would have gone unnoticed and undone had I not made my stupid scattered mistake.  As I was sitting there I started wondering what the lesson was for me in this situation.  It came to me pretty quickly.

This was a simple example of something that happens to us over and over.  We have plans.  God's plans are different, things don't work out like we expect.  We wait.  And what we do with that wait, well that's just as important, sometimes even more important than the thing we are waiting on.  I'm sure you can insert your own circumstances into the scenario.

I've been there a lot.  And I know I will be there more.  The time my husband was out of work....and we had to wait for a job.  That was some seriously hard waiting.  Of course God provided for us, but having to trust him so fully was a huge exercise of faith.  One that battled doubt, fear, anger, frustration, and control.  But that wait caused us to lean on God in such a new, big way.

And then there was the infertility.  I didn't publicize it much then, but I know it's my responsibility to share it now.  That was SO not my plan.  Words can't express that pain and the way that "ailment" consumes your life.  That wait was torture.  But that wait also brought me close to so many friends who had walked my path.  I experienced God's love and hope through his children like never before. And peace.  Peace that surpassed anything I could understand.  That wait...I wouldn't change it for anything.

Waiting on little man.  Wow.  There are no words.   Going in to the hospital pregnant and not knowing if you are going to come home with a baby...I can't even...   This is the wait that got us the most.  This is the first time in our lives that we had to surrender everything.  In the other waits, there were actions we could take to make ourselves feel like we were being proactive.  But here, all we could do was be still and wait on God.  I don't know how we did it.  There is only one explanation, and that's that God was there in the wait, loving on us, whispering peace, shushing our tears.

Then little man was here, and once again we waited.  We waited for him to grow enough to come home.   This had its own challenges as we struggled with all the new parent things in the most unnatural setting.  Being separated for seven weeks totally brought out the best and the worst in us.  To be completely honest, it wasn't a period that I spent a lot of time in prayer.  I'm confident that I just existed on the prayers of everyone else.  Like Mary, I took all these things and pondered them in my heart.  It was the longest and shortest seven weeks of my life.  It was the closest and furthest away I've ever felt to God.  That wait was special, something that I could never explain, but would never ever change.

And now we wait again.  What does God have next for us?  Will He grow our family, and if He does how will that be?  All we can do is wait.  But I've learned that waiting isn't something to curse. Waiting is where we are pruned, where we lean on God, and where we experience new blessings.

So I encourage you, whatever you are waiting on, don't grow discouraged.  Seek God, soak up what He is offering you now.  Don't miss your life now for looking only toward what you are waiting on. Great things happen while you wait.

Psalm 37: 3-8

Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
do not fret-it leads only to evil.