When You're In The Waiting Room.

You're sitting in a waiting room.  It doesn't matter where.  It only matters that the lady in front of you is chewing her gum at an obnoxious volume while the man next to you reassures you for the twentieth time that it really is just a rash and the kid crawling under your seat keeps kicking your legs and how much longer can you be expected to wait in these conditions?

Original sunset photo taken by Alysha Perkins.

Oh my word.  Can we just take a moment to collectively sigh and agree that the act of waiting is frustrating and exhausting?

If all of our lives worked together to make a quilt of stories, waiting would be the connecting thread.  We all get it, that tickle of dread that accompanies waiting.  How long will I have to wait?  Just how long?

And sometimes the answer is nice.  Sometimes the wait is short.  Sometimes there is no wait and things happen immediately and bluebirds sing from the heavens.

But sometimes the answer hurts.  Sometimes the wait is excruciatingly long.  Sometimes we're left wondering if we've been abandoned, forgotten, neglected.

And, y'all, I know waiting.  I know it intimately.  Waiting and I have been the closest friends for nearly four years now and I can honestly say that the wait can make you feel like you're losing your mind.  One minute, you can be alright with it.  The next minute you're kicking the door of the waiting room, screaming for someone anyone to please come and get you out of this place.      

The waiting room is hard.

You are going to lose heart, have unanswered questions, and need strength for the wait.  You are going to cry and scream into your pillow and whisper prayers in the dark for the strength to just keep holding on until the wait is over.  You're going to forget that because you are waiting for Him, you are waiting for good and it will be worth it.  

But God knew what He was doing when He put us in this waiting room together because I have felt that way on many occasions.  Others have reminded me of the importance of waiting on God, have lifted my eyes and my perspective when my heart dipped low under the weight of the waiting.  And I praise God that it is now my turn to remind you.

When it seems that your life is on hold, like you're on the bench while others get to play the game.  When your head won't quit anxiously telling you to get out, get out, get out as fast as you possibly can.  When life seems to kick you while you're down.  When you need a reminder to wait because it is what He has asked you to do, your anxious and angry eyes will look up and meet mine across the aisle.  And I will smile at you and say, "It's alright.  I get it.  Don't give up."

Nobody waits in the waiting room forever.  Eventually, each name is called.  And if we walk out of the waiting room to pursue our own way, we'll miss the moment He comes through the door and calls our name. 
  
Waiting is incredibly tiresome. But if we will wait exactly where God asks us to wait, not heading back out of frustration or moving forward out of impatience, we will find that He has asked us to wait here for a reason. For 'here', wherever that may be, is directly positioned to receive His blessings in His time.

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Day Twenty.

You can find the rest of the series here.