The Waiting

Tom Petty sang it well.  The waiting is the hardest part.

How often I hear one of my kiddos lament that they just can't wait til tomorrow for their friend to come over. Or they just can't wait  x number of weeks to earn enough money to buy what they want.

And I'm thinking in my head, Get used to it kiddos.  The waiting is part of this worldly life.  Yes, one of the hardest parts.

I shouldn't quote a rock n roller without quoting words more infinitely true and inspired, the words of God written through his prophet Habbakuk.

"Though the fig tree does not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,  the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet will I take joy in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation." vs 3: 17, 18

This is where I'm at.  Still and again.  Waiting. Waiting on God, who is faithful and true, who keeps all his promises, who never leads me astray. But who does not act in the timing that I think He should act.  Almost never.

I remember waiting, with hope, on this amazing man who is now my husband.  I confess, I didn't have to wait quite as long as I thought I would to become his bride.  From a three week courtship to a three month engagement- that's a pretty quick trip to the altar.  But I remember how even that felt like an eternity.

I remember waiting to sell our former home, hoping every day to receive a call from the realtor that someone wanted to view it.  We got three calls. Third time was the charm. Just 77 days to sell it in a very depressed market, yet every day seemed like forever.

One day, I hope to look back on what is presently almost three years of waiting.  It may be, and probably will be, longer.  But I hope to look back on these three years of waiting for something.  Anything.  That next move, that next step, that act of God that finally makes these dry, desert, lonely years blossom into the fruitful and abundant, the gushing springs.

At this point, there is very little blossom, very little fruit.  Our endeavors seem to wither and fail.   It can be so easy to dwell on the empty places.

And yet.  In the waiting, the joy of the Lord can be our ready strength.  And if we yield to that, there is abundance after all.

Two "Oldies" to Try

I am decidedly behind the times.

I am rarely current on movies or books and pay little attention to what's new in music aside from the occasional scan through the radio stations.  Really, I have mediocre interest, and even less time for staying up-to-date on things.

But often, some of the best things out there find their way to me.

Books like The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini.

I found a copy of this book at an annual library book sale on the Fourth of July, along with a few other gems (A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Book Thief).

The Kite Runner is easily one of my favorite books now, perhaps even vying for first place with To Kill a Mockingbird.  It is beautiful, redemptive, and perhaps, strangely, a book that drew me closer to God, though the god of this book was Allah.   While reading the recent history of Afghanistan, and seeing life through an average Afghans, my eyes were opened to the deep love my Father God has for these people.  To their suffering.  To their very humanness which is so like my own.  These Muslim people are not worthy of my fear or my scorn, but my compassion and the same love Jehovah-God feels for them.

Another book found it's way to me.

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.

Many a time I've thought of trying it out, but haven't.  I recently found a copy at Goodwill and began reading it on a rainy day this week.

These tears well up in my eyes, but don't fall, as I read it.  Because I can relate to it so well.  The void between being saved from my sins but living a full and abundant life of joy in the midst of the daily.  Just as she began a list of gifts,  I began one. A list of gifts God gives me in the everyday.  Because this is what God has given me and I want to call it good.

More than likely I will not stay current on movies, unless it's the latest in the Marvel Avenger's series. Josh looks forward to those and they are about the only films we'll go to the theater to see.  And even though I am a music buff, the new stuff can be so full of ick that we stick to Christian radio for the most part.

So you'll never find me reviewing what's Cool and New, but maybe give these few oldies a shot.