Wednesday, June 30, 2010

i doubt if godot is going to show up, but i'm here if he does.

"Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him..."--psalms 37:7

i feel like i've gotten a fair bit of experience with waiting for things.  i've mentioned before, ad nauseum perhaps, that i waited a long time for musicboy, both literally and figuratively. for those of you new to my life, in my world people get married early, so i was practically a day-old bread product by the time i got married at the ripe old age of 31.

(yes, i do recognize that that is neither old nor unusual in the real world, but i'm talking LDS dating world, and that's on the far end of the bell curve.)

i also waited while musicboy served his mission, which was two years well-spent. i'm pretty sure it was while we were away that we realized, individually and without discussion with each other, that we were rather unwilling to have a life where the other one was not featured prominently.

ANYWAY.

i feel like i've learned a little something about waiting on the Lord.

funny how i don't feel like He thinks i've learned enough.  here i am, speaking quite vaguely and without any real specifics because that's how it needs to be, waiting again.  unlike last time, when i was waiting for the right guy, this time it's something specific and something important but something that i just have to wait for.

there's no way to rush it, there's no way to control it, really.

it's just waiting. again.

but since marrying musicboy, i don't think i've really rested in the Lord. i don't think i have been enough.  before, there came a point in time when i decided that it wasn't up to me, i had no control, so i was going to do all that i could to make my life what i wanted and leave the rest in the capable and loving hands of Someone who knew much more than me.

that's when the peace and the life that i wanted really began.  and, not surprisingly, that's right around the time that i met musicboy.

but i think, despite my smug assurances to myself at times that i really did learn a lot of lessons about waiting, i still have lessons to learn about patience and about waiting well. just like endurance, i think patience and waiting can be done well.  i think, this time, i'm striving to wait well. 

i think this is the first time in a long time that i've made that conscious decision--to wait. to wait happily. to be content in waiting.  to wait until moved upon to no longer wait anymore.

i have my moments of fear and questioning--secondguessing myself, embracing the jittery feeling that we all get as we wait in that Waiting Place--but for the most part, i am just waiting. 

(and right now i think waiting is the easiest thing to do.  sometimes, waiting is recuperative. i think waiting, right now, is also important for the way it is nourishing me.  sometimes our wait is less about patience and more about preparation.)

and choosing to wait well, i think, is a lesson the Lord feels i need to continue to learn.  i see, with each opportunity to be patient and to subjugate my desires for RIGHTNOW to the more eternal perspective, the good parts of me growing. i am more understanding of those around me, i am more empathetic, i see more clearly the areas in my life that i need to work on, and i am able to access the peace of the Spirit more. 

in the patience comes the learning, and i am grateful for that. i feel like i have a lot to learn.

and so i'm waiting.

1 comment:

  1. A quote from the new karate kid, which my friend now parrots to me endlessly...being still is different than doing nothing.

    In my dating dearth (10 singles wards in the area and I still can't get one lousy date? really? really?) I have decided that instead of worrying so much about boys, I'm going to figure out where I need to be so that when I meet the right boy, he doesn't have to wait for me to catch up to him in so many aspects. So that has been my recent goal.

    We had a huge YSA conference a couple of weeks ago. At the gigantic church meeting on Sunday, we had Seventy and his wife come talk, they were AH-MAZING. He talked about how one of the apostles had once told him he was reading all the scriptures listed under patience in the topical guide. After that, I did so, and it was amazing what I learned about not patience. You could give that a shot.

    The end.

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