I do not wait well. I get impatient in traffic and often try to find a less crowded route. While waiting in line at the post office, I configure new systems for better efficiency in my head. Yet, over and over again, I find myself in a season of waiting.
I finally became a bride at the age of thirty-four which frankly is considered an ancient marrying age for someone born and raised in the south. I joke with my husband that he did a good job hiding from me for a decade. Now that I have this handsome partner in life, I can remember those single years with rose-colored glasses. I think of late-night conversations with roommates, sharing the cable bill and clothes, and hosting fun parties.
But if I gave you permission to read my journals from that time in my life, you would see how terrible I am at waiting. Those tear-stained pages tell of a girl who desperately longed for her forever love story to begin. Line after line were filled with my words begging God to bring the man I dreamed of into my life. These journals make it clear that I grew weary of making major life decisions alone and that dating felt like an utterly futile form of torture. When I think of my single years, I can also remember the amazing days and the travel with friends and getting to live out some of my dreams but I also remember the waiting. So much waiting.
Many of my friends married their college sweethearts which meant I married a full decade after many of them. That is a lot of years of waiting, wondering, and longing. I am now in another season of waiting as our family is in the process of growing through adoption.
Remember, I do not wait well. Anytime I am delayed, I try to find a better way forward. I am always seeking efficiency and quicker processes for even mundane things like house work. I am learning that with adoption there is nothing I can do to make the process move at a different pace. There is no system I can put in place to make the wait shorter or on my schedule. I am out of control just like I was when I was waiting to meet this handsome hubby of mine.
As I have been thinking more about the different seasons of life, it involves season after season of waiting. We can miss today as we wait for tomorrow. I have also noticed that I can miss God on days that I feel weary in the waiting.
Yet, I know that God is in the waiting. He is not going to join in when the waiting ends. God was there with me uniquely when I waited to meet my husband. He did not decide to just show up at the wedding.
And now, as we wait to add to our family through adoption, God is there in the waiting even when I can’t feel Him. He will not arrive once we have the baby in our arms. He is present and He is actively in the story right now. He is directing each moment even the ones that feel like a delay.
Are you waiting today? For a spouse? For a child? For a pregnancy? For a new job? For reconciliation with someone you love? For better health? For warmer weather? For more joy? For the grief to lessen? For a better marriage? For a friend?
God is there, friend. I needed to be reminded of this as I continue to learn to wait. He has not gone away or forgotten you as you wait. He is in control and He is writing your story.
God is in the waiting.
What is Amy reading these days?
