Waiting

Waiting. Nobody enjoys it--the proverbial 8 year old waiting for Christmas morning, waiting in the endless line for security at the airport or the interminable wait on hold when telephoning your doctor's office. I guess is just shows my impatient nature, but I do so hate waiting.

Larry and I are currently waiting on some important news. It's driven me to endless hours of American Idol recordings and cups of hot chocolate pudding to pass the wait that is stretching out beyond what we had hoped. How long will we wait on this one?

On waits of some consequence, I do find myself turning to God with my impatient prayers--the casting all your cares on him offer (1 Peter 5:7). I've persisted for years with a couple prayers of waiting. He know my desires, my needs, my impatience with the wait. I can rest when I trust him with that.

And on a back page of my Bible, I'm making a growing list of verses that talk about waiting. Exodus 40:12 recounts the Israelites waiting 430 years on God in Egypt! ugh. But Psalm 33:20 helps me "wait in hope on the Lord." There's a lot of waiting in that book.

I'm trying to learn to find contentment, even joy in the wait--like finding the fun in my 3rd graders when summer vacation looms on the horizon. I don't want to foolishly miss the good in "now." The wait could be time to reconcile myself to news I don't want to hear when the wait is over, to be ready. It could be a rest in the journey to read, or quilt or encourage friends while I wait, and wait... I think it's called "living in the moment" even as I impatiently wait. I know God is good. And I'm waiting...