Hard Wait

The kids were home alone the other night with their big sister in charge.  While it’s difficult to watch the kids grow so fast, this part of the kids getting older is pretty much awesome.

Parents, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s great when babysitters are no longer needed.  It’s great…until you get the phone calls during dinner that the fighting has begun and someone is basically pulling someone else’s eyeballs out.  It’s great until then.

Parents, you know what I’m talking about.

The kids had an eye-ball-pulling-out evening the other night whilst home alone.  But, alas, we came home to a quiet house.  Everyone had receded into his or her corner, eyeballs were mostly returned and put back, and this letter was left on our bed from our youngest:

Dear Mom and Dad, I was being naughty to Ella. We fighted so I just want to say punish me as much as you want.  

Oh, child.  And so the next morning I asked her about the letter, and she told me this:

Mom, I’m just really, really glad you’re home, mom, so that Ella isn’t in charge anymore. I just kept waiting for you to come home.  It was a really hard wait. And then I just fell asleep.  

Yep.

It was a hard wait, she told me.  And I figured that would be a hard wait, considering the fact that she opened the door for us to punish her “as much as we wanted.”

There are so many hard waits in this life.  We’re waiting to find the right house for our family to make our home.   It’s a hard wait.  Waiting on news about a job, waiting on a difficult marriage, waiting on test results, waiting on a child who has walked away from the faith, waiting on a spirit to feel renewed after being stuck in the mud and mire for so long, waiting on a pregnancy when for months there has been no success – we’ve all experienced these hard waits in some capacity.

I’ve waited on death on two different occasions.  This is a strange and difficult waiting, standing around the bed of a loved one while begging God to let the suffering be over.  In the last days of both parents, I prayed for death for three days, and with each moment, with each second, the Lord responded with, “Wait.”  We wait patiently as believers because we are finite and not in control.  We wait patiently because there is an infinite God who is in control with His perfect timing and in His perfect way.  And as believers, we don’t wait in vain.  We don’t even wait merely for the end result, but we wait focused on who we can become in the process of a hard wait.

I think of Abraham and the many, many years he waited to see the promise to him fulfilled, that he would father many nations.  But he didn’t wait in vain.  Romans 4 tells us what he did during the waiting process:

18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

During the waiting process, Abraham grew stronger in his faith with open hands and an open heart reflecting on the glory of God and the promise that He is able to do abundantly more than we ask or even imagine.

Waiting for the messiah must have been a hard wait, filled with seasons of doubt, but “in the fullness of time,” the incarnation happened, and God Almighty took on flesh and walked amongst us.  Oh, the depth of emotion Mary must have had when her son was finally born, when the One promised to save the world  lay peacefully in her arms.  “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”  

Her hard wait produced beautiful worship which was recorded and which still penetrates my heart.  She was able to rejoice with fullness of heart because Christ had come.

And we keep waiting with this same anticipation for Christ’s return.  Sometimes it’s a hard wait.  With all the violence, uncertainty, stress, and loss we experience, it can be a hard wait.  But we don’t have to wait in vain.  We become someone during the process, and if our hands and heart are open to the glory of God, if our faces are turned heavenward during this season rather than inward, our faith can be strengthened, our praises heard, and the nearness of God can be felt.  He never leaves during the waiting process; He walks with us as closely as we feel our own breath.

May the hard waiting produce in us beautiful worship that penetrates the hearts of those around us, knowing that one day the ultimate wait will be over and with great joy we will proclaim, Christ has come.