warning: this might be too personal.
why is waiting sometimes so difficult and painful?
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary... those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength... Isaiah 40:28, 31
when i was in the States a few months ago i didn't have a phone for a few days. waiting to get one was excruciating. that makes me feel so selfish. in fact, the phone company told me it would take up to two weeks for the phone i wanted to be delivered. i couldn't wait; i got a different phone. yuck; i HATE admitting this. but i felt like i couldn't wait to talk to people.
i was chatting with a friend this morning about adoption. she said it could take several years to complete an international adoption. YEARS! that's a long wait for a baby. most people feel 9 months is too long.
as a child i can remember this Christmas season and waiting for Christmas morning. my little brother could hardly wait any longer, when he'd wake us all up at 4 a.m. to open presents. sometimes my mom would make us wait until my grandparents came over. oh, that was so hard. worse than waiting for a bathroom stop on a long road trip after two cups of coffee and a whole nalgene of water (something i am also very familiar with).
and now i find myself counting down the days and waiting (painfully, i admit) until i go 'home' and see my family and friends again. i would sometimes almost prefer to skip over these next 10 weeks completely if i could, ignoring Christmas altogether.
wait.
i wait.
i [try to be patient and] wait [often with a bad attitude and discouragement, trying everything i can find to distract myself].
i wait for news from those who are separated from me.
parents that i know are awaiting with eagerness, hope, and excitement the arrival of their children coming home for the holiday. for some of them it's been more than a year that they've seen their child.
a friend asks me to pray for her family when her organization is, once again, deciding if they can live here in Kenya or if they must go to the States. for 3 years they have been waiting, each year, on this decision to be made again and a again.
we give ourselves distractions, bring work along with us, have the internet on our phones to entertain us while we're waiting in traffic, waiting for an appointment, waiting to pick up the kids...
i have made signs, messages, and reminders to myself to wait. wait, i tell myself. wait on God to provide. don't try so hard to go after the things you think you want. you can't control everything anyway and you'll probably mess things up. wait for direction. wait for a sign. wait for His provision in everything. wait...
from my advent devotional:
"Advent is about waiting. Waiting, because it will always be with us, can be made a work of art, and the season of Advent invites us to underscore and understand with a new patience that very feminine state of being, waiting... Waiting is mysteriously necessary to all that is becoming. As in a pregnancy nothing of value comes into being without a period of quiet incubation: not a healthy baby, not a loving relationship, not reconciliation, a new understanding, a work of art, never a transformation. Brewing, simmering, fermenting, ripening, germinating, gestating are the feminine processes of becoming and they are symbolic states which belong in a life of value; necessary to transformation." (this is actually taken from another book, To Dance with God by Gertrude Meuller Nelson)
i don't know how to make waiting easier. i know that it is a part of life. i am learning that it is life. waiting is necessary and i'm not sure i'll ever be done waiting.
as we are celebrating this Advent season with parties, gatherings, food, friends, and family, let's remember we are celebrating a season of waiting. and waiting can be celebrated. remembering that, "nothing of value comes into being without a period of quiet incubation."
from today's Advent meditation, a poem by Vivian Stacey, South African poet:
No longer waiting to live
I wait in the secret dark with the rock spider who watches
through the light crack behind his lichen trap door
I watch the whole surround with the horny chameleon
who unlids his revolving eye, coil tongue tensed
I keep faith that warmth comes with the brown lizard
still as death, who trusts the sun will heat his blood
I am on full alert with the upright meerkat
sentry on the ridge who will bark the alarm
I find my moments of poise with the vulture stopped
in the vortex, who will drop in full surrender of flight
So do I keep a graced watch with creatures
and the waiting and the watch is life.
