The Waiting Games

How are you at waiting for things?  I am an absolute failure...I would much rather be taking some sort of action than waiting for something.  I don't wait well...I get irritable and grumpy and hard to live with...The last couple weeks have seemed like water torture for me as we have been waiting for the paperwork to be ready for both house closings, waiting to move, waiting to make more plans about the work we will do for the new house, and waiting for some word on the progress of the adoption.  I would never choose to vacation in Limbo :-)  I often forget in my frustration about waiting that these are mostly times I should be learning to wait on God...the moments of non-action are as important and beneficial as the decisive and active parts of my life if used wisely in prayer and meditation on God's will for me.  My word for the week (or my lifetime) is PATIENCE.

Over the last few weeks our Sunday Night church services have been viewing a series of videos from Louie Giglio tours...Indescribable...How Great is Our God....and they have been outstanding and insightful.  Last night's topic was on suffering and how in our suffering it is like a megaphone gets passed to us to see what we will broadcast.  He talked about how most of us live our lives in self-preservation mode..."am I and my closest relatives/friends safe and sound?" But, that if we live with this as our driving motivation...our world will crumble when suffering gets in our face.  Instead, he challenged us to see suffering as an inevitable, but to see Christ as our OVER COMER and thus make our driving motivation to Glorify Him in all circumstances.  Even suffering and death cannot steal this goal from us.

So you are wondering if I consider waiting, suffering...though sometimes it is like Chinese Water Torture for me, that isn't all...I had an interesting drive home after work the day I found out the Adoption Agency was down to our family and one other.  I was totally in self-preservation mode as I gave God an earful of my wants... I basically told Him I did not want to be the family NOT CHOSEN...I did not want to experience that loss.  GULP...sometimes I forget I am sitting at the grown-up table now and I am to submit and "get what I get and don't throw a fit" (I commonly use this phrase with my girls when they are disputing my dinner selection).  So (matter-of-factly) He told me if I experience the loss...it is because He wants me to...then the flood of revelation came...what about the other family that is waiting?...what about the extreme loss the girls are experiencing right now?...what about God's ultimate plan...which may involve me understanding this hurt in order to help someone else? what about getting outside of myself for a minute to consider these things?  Crow doesn't taste good...no matter how many ways I attempt to prepare it!

So, what am I broadcasting through the waiting or suffering in general?...well, I hope I am broadcasting the Supremacy of God in my life...even through my rebellious, self-absorbed moments...I know these are the things He is trying to teach me right now.  I get a lesson on something else and then a lesson on patience...and this pattern repeats throughout my life.  Will I ever win the waiting games? Though it pains me to admit it....I guess we'll just have to wait and see.