Here we are again. My life is packed up in boxes, as we move to another rental in Tampa, FL. It was just a month from the time we began looking at rentals to the time we signed our new lease. That’s pretty fast!
But as we lived through it, it seemed far longer than that. We combed Trulia for new listings, toured rentals, and collected unanswerable questions.
“Where will we live next?”
“What will our rent be?”
“Will there be outdoor space?”
“Will there be room for our dining room table?”
“What neighborhood district will we be in?”
We were in the wait.
It seems like a pattern in my life, the wait. When I felt like I was supposed to be a mom. There was a wait. When my husband and I felt yearnings to start a church. There was a wait.
When my daughter was 2-years-old her least favorite word “wait.” She loved watching videos on our iPad, but when that dreaded commercial came on, her world came crashing down. I watched her struggle as I told her she just needed to “wait.”
“WAIT!” she would shriek in complaint. “WAIT!”
As I watched her struggle, I saw my own struggles mirrored in a 2.5 foot tall creature. How many times have I been impatient with God’s timing in my life?
It’s not that God drops some news and walks away. He’s there in the wait too. He’s showing us how things might feel utterly impossible, but He’s working them out. In His way. In His timing. We are bound by time, serving a God who is outside of it.
The first stage of happiness is anticipation, according to Gretchen Rubin in her book The Happiness Project. You know the feeling. Like a kid waking up early on Christmas morning. Studying the boxes under the tree, dreaming about what’s in them. God is in the wait. And if we realize we don’t need to wait in agony, we can anticipate with joy what might be next.
Sometimes it’s not a dream or a wish. Sometimes life simply gets in the way and forces a wait – illness, parenting challenges, a job transition. The wait can feel like quicksand. But I believe God has something for each of us through the wait and on the other side of it.
Friends, let’s find God in the wait. Let’s anticipate that He can do it. That He is doing it. Even if it looks differently that we could imagine.
Is there a time of waiting that sticks out to you? How do you find God in the wait?
I’ve been feeling much of the same recently. Thank you for sharing, Andrea. Your gift for writing is wonderful.
I have definitely been in a season of waiting more than a few times. When I am in these I remember Habakkuk. And I try not to get comfortable in the hallway. Sometimes my problem is becoming okay with waiting and then not moving quickly when God shows me what to do… I’m a work in progress. :o)