Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Exploring the Productive Potential of Waiting

"You and Dylan are such a volatile combination:  you don't have any patience and he requires boat-loads of it...not a good thing, Mom."  This was a statement of fact gently delivered to me yesterday by my older son as he witnessed, yet another scene between his brother and me in which I played the part of the Mommy Hulk...sigh... I know...I have mentioned this before: I am a very impatient person.  I also despise waiting.  Of course I do, they go hand in hand.  One is basically the result of the other. Sigh...

I know, gentleness is not one of my qualities either.  I wonder if that's where Grant got his bluntness from?  But again, the Lord has been teaching me over the last...many...many...many years, the valuable lessons of waiting patiently in Him.  I have learned a lot.  But, I still have a long, long, long way to go.

This morning, however, I woke up thinking about a person I sort of know who is going through a very scary situation that involves a very tense waiting period filled with anxiety and fear.  What makes it scarier, in my opinion, is the fact that she does not know God.  She professes her disbelief.  On the same token, she has also disclosed her fear of dying.  I don't know this woman very well at all.  I don't really have any relationship with her myself.  But she is very dear to someone who is one of my dearest persons in the whole-wide-world...so, as my dearest person is going through great distress due to this situation, I'm feeling the sting of her pain in my heart as well.

I want to help...but I have no idea how.  But, I sure can't get this whole thing out of my mind, either.  This is why I decided to write about it a bit...to try to process what I see and feel through this experience.  And what I am seeing and feeling this morning is that this is another opportunity to meditate on the action of waiting upon the Lord.

As I'm able to detach from the situation a bit, I have been thinking that one of the reasons I don't like waiting is because waiting feels too much like doing nothing.  It's like I'm helpless...at the mercy of others who may or may not have my best interest in their minds.  I hate sitting there...waiting...I need to feel like I'm doing something to make the situation better...to improve things...to change the outcome...to manipulate things so everything goes my way...waiting is just so...unproductive...sigh...

Waiting, however, if done right, could actually be a very productive time.  I just have to be smart about it...in a surrendered way, of course.

Looking back at my intense periods of waiting, I realize that those have been the most fulfilling times of my life.  Those have been the moments when God has revealed to me in the most amazing of ways.  It has been while I wait, that I have felt the closest to My Lord.  And the reason this has happened and continues to happens is because waiting is a time to seek, to listen, to trust and to see...and we do all that under the umbrella of thanksgiving.

For now, I'm going to leave it here.  But, I would like to explore each of these concepts one by one in the next few days...so I can fill this period of waiting experiencing the richness of the presence of the Holy Spirit, Our Guide and Our Ever-Present Comforter and Companion.  May the Light of His Face shine upon us as we walk on the complicated paths of waiting in Him.  And, I don't know...maybe, someday, Grant would be able to see the fruit of patience fully grown in the heart of his crazy Mom.  Amen!


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