I really hate waiting, I’m sure you can relate.
It requires that thing that I’m not very good at and that I don’t like to practice; patience.
Everyone I know seems to be waiting on something and I’m sure you’re waiting on something right now as well.
For some of my friends it’s a child, some are waiting for the 40th week to meet their little one, others are waiting on a call saying they’ve been matched with a birth mom, while others are still waiting on a positive test result. Some friends are waiting for the ‘right one’ to come along, for the right job, or for the right house. Other friends are waiting on acceptance letters into academic programs. And others wait for test results, a diagnosis, and answers.
Waiting feels like stagnation.
Waiting feels like muscles atrophying
Waiting feels like watching the grass grow.
Waiting feels little nothing is happening.
Waiting is so excruciating at times that I end up running around like a chicken with my head cut off, not accomplishing anything but feeling like I am because I’m running around like crazy.
We’ve been knocking, and doors aren’t opening, if anything it seems like they’ve been slamming shut. We are seeking, and we’re not finding. We’re asking and we’re not hearing anything.
Lately I’ve been frantic; sending emails, making calls, running around, and trying to make things happen, numbing the discomfort of waiting with by filling my days with unnecessary noise.
But there was something I hadn’t been doing.
Waiting.
Actively waiting.
Waiting with purpose.
Waiting intentionally.
It sounds really weird, a little oxymoronic, to actively wait.
Wait. Stay. Pause. Remain. Stop. Rest.
Those words are not ones that I tend to think of as active or intentional.
They seem more like unwanted byproducts from plans that aren’t coming together that way I would like.
But actively waiting, that changed something in me when I started intentionally practicing it.
I didn’t find myself in a frenzy over the tiniest things.
I didn’t wake up with my mind racing from the time my alarm went off.
I didn’t feel impatience eating away at my bones.
Instead I felt still, quiet, attentive, and strangely peaceful.
So I’ve been waking up and starting off my days differently.
Not by checking email or scrolling through Facebook while I lay in bed trying to wake up.
Not rolling out of bed to throw on some clothes and running shoes, fire up my Spotify app and clock a few miles.
In the dark quietness of the early morning, I’ve been starting off my days by being silent and intentionally waiting.
It’s not some special tactic that produces a specific result, in fact, often I don’t hear, feel, or sense much during those quiet dark moments.
But the mornings, are filled with a wonderful quietness and stillness that, rather than making me feel stagnant or frantic and like I need to do something, are leaving me at ease and feeling rested in a season of mostly unknowns.
Waiting is a practice and a discipline.
Waiting us never easy, it’s no ones activity of choice, but it’s instrumental preparation for whatever the next season will hold.
Even when part of the season we’re in is waiting to see what the next one will hold.