There is Hope in Waiting

Wait for the Lord;

be strong and take heart

and wait for the Lord. Psalm 27: 14

"Where is THAT KID????!!!!"  "OMGOSH I'M GOING TO .....  UGH!!!!"  "HE IS RUINING MY VACATION!!!!"  

Yep...those words actually came out of my mouth a few weeks ago when we were waiting for Grant to come home from his summer camp job so we could leave for my long-time-dreamed Outer Banks vacation. He was like 1 hour late from when I had hoped he'd be able to be home...and that waiting period KILLED ME! Every minute he was late represented another minute that my beach-time was reduced...and I couldn't deal with it.  

Let's just say, waiting is NOT something I do gracefully.  

God has been trying to teach me the all-too-crucial lesson of waiting in His timing, but I refuse to learn.  So He keeps giving me opportunities to acquire this most important virtue.  The thing that makes it harder is that the lesson includes learning to wait for other people too...waiting in their timing without forcing my timing on them.  Boy, is that a super hard thing to master...sigh...

But the Lord is a Faithful teacher and He has made sure I have living tutorials that re-enforce the class on a daily basis. Being wired to rush, dash and jump...has made it very challenging to live surrounded by 3 gentlemen who seemed to have been born to just chill.  So...hence...the built-in, daily lecture on patience and waiting...sigh...

At any rate, all these came to mind when reading our last verse in Psalm 27...which...I love.  I love it so much because it is like a healing balm to my frazzled mind.  It is a verse that gives me an abundance of hope...and hope is a commodity that is at a premium in this harsh world today.  Thinking about hope reminded me of two words in Spanish that are related:  Esperanza and Esperar.  

Esperanza is a beautiful word that is also used as a name.  The word means, exactly that: Hope...to be precise, it comes from the Latin word "sperare" which means "to have hope." Then, the other word, Esperar which comes from the same Latin word as Esperanza, means..."to wait."  

How beautiful is that? 

Hope and Wait go together.  They come exactly from the same place and they can't be split apart.  There is hope in waiting.  So, I pray...next time I have to wait...I remember the hope that lives inside of that waiting period...so I don't lose it!

Anyway, Grant made it home eventually.  And as usual, God showed me how His plan is a GIZZILION times better than mine because we ended up having the most pleasant, uneventful, smooth ride EVER to that region of the country.  We didn't run into any stopped traffic or highway accidents.  We were stunned.  We concluded that leaving later than usual helped us avoid the "normal" road obstacles we have grown accustomed to when traveling to the Carolinas.  So...waiting paid off...and I got to enjoy the Outer Banks in all their glory...and no harm was caused to Grant.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord, the One Whose Timing is Perfect and Who is All Hope.  Amen!