Waiting

Years ago, before I ever met my husband, I was a young high school graduate weeks away from starting my first day of college.  I was all of the emotions you are supposed to feel heading off to school, but I was also a little bit disappointed: I was 18 years old and I had never had a boyfriend.

I know, tragedy.  It clearly was not the end of the world, and I knew God had all things working out in the end, but I couldn't help but wonder how this was going to work with my plan.  I had told my mom earlier that summer that my plan was to date someone for two years and then get married, in between my sophomore and junior year of college.  (Why this was my master plan, I'm not entirely sure.)  My mom chuckled and suggested I "find somebody quick, since I would be getting married in two years."

I was walking through the small corridor of the office I had worked at my junior and senior year of high school, I was just thinking. There wasn't a whole lot of chitchat in this office (surprisingly,since it was an office of all women) everyone was always working on what they were doing - and my job - well, it was rather brainless, so I thought a lot.  This one particular afternoon, I was thinking about all the crushes I'd had over the years and had even daydreamed about marrying the cute guy that worked at the assessors office whom I had never talked to.  I was walking between rows of file cabinets and my desk, and I heard it - "Wait for the Lord."  It was completely clear to me, as though a voice literally spoke it.  And I was done.  I was done pining over guys I'd seen, I was done daydreaming about who I'd marry - I was even okay with not getting married.  I literally stopped in my tracks grabbed a piece of yellow note paper and a pencil and wrote it down and stuck it in my pocket.  When I got home, I nailed it to my bulletin board.

It was done, I was done.

That was my first experience with "waiting for the Lord" - and, I was particularly blessed with God understanding how very little patience I have when it was just 3 days later that I received a phone call from a friend asking me to come over a for an impromptu party, and it was there that I met the man who would become my best friend and later my husband.  (I'm happy to say, that I did get married when I would have been in between my sophomore and junior year of college, had I continued on that far...)

My next experience with "waiting for the Lord" came a few years later.  Our church had a Wednesday morning prayer time and my good friend and I would go and pray for about an hour.  For a few weeks while I was praying I felt compelled to memorize Psalm 27. The final verse (v 14) says:

"Wait for the Lord;

be strong and take heart

and wait for the Lord."

I relied on this verse for years.  I clung to these verses when my husband and I disagreed on when was the right time to have a baby.  I clung to these verses when we experienced miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage and I didn't know when we would be able to have a baby. I've quoted this verse over and over to myself throughout the years.  

And now - years later, it is still ringing true.  

Last night when our worship time was finished our pastor began reading Psalm 27.  At the time, I didn't realize it; I knew the verses were familiar but couldn't quite place them, and then  just a few verses in it hit me - I know this chapter!  And I knew what was coming - "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."  

Waiting, I'm still not very good at it.  A day of waiting feels like an eternity but I know it will soon be over.  I know that while I want to wish away waiting, I don't want to wish away life so I am learning, so slowly it seems, to wait patiently for the Lord.  

Wait. Wait. Wait.  

The last few weeks have felt like they are just dragging; two steps forward, one step back.  An email that gets my hopes up, and then knowing its not what we are supposed to do.  Insurance calls, doctors office calls and visits, all working up to one test - and then more waiting.  Results - that will bring more waiting.  

Waiting, waiting, waiting.  

It reminds me of the line in the Dr. Suess book Oh, the Places You'll Go. 

 "The Waiting Place ... for people just waiting."  

It goes on to say:

"NO! That's not for you!  

Somehow you'll escape all that waiting and staying.  

You'll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing."

I feel like, that's where we are right now - the Waiting Place - but it is exactly where we are supposed to be.  

All this waiting, its doing something in us, it is growing us, preparing us, changing us for who we are going to be - for where we are going to be.  We are headed into a new stage of our lives, with new and different adventures.  T

hings will not be easier, but they will be different.

And right now, right here - this waiting place - this is the only place that I feel confident is where God has us for now.  I hope we don't hang out here for long, but if we do - we know that it is all in preparation for something greater.