The Waiting

At our women's Bible study today, we discussed Hannah and her waiting for a child. She prayed. She cried. She wailed. She was honest and real. She waited. And waited. She didn't take matters into her own hands. Time passed. And one day, when the time was right, she had a precious child, Samuel. And a few years later, she gave Samuel back to God. Wow. 

Hannah spent a lot of time 'between the dreaming and the coming true'. That's a really hard place to be sometimes. You want to believe. To hope. You sense excitement and anticipation. But then it takes too long. But you don't want to give up. You learn. To wait. Expectantly. I think waiting implies that something is going to happen. And, as a person of faith, I believe that God hears prayers and will answer them in His time and in His way. I've been around long enough to know that my way isn't THE way. 

Faith takes waiting. In fact, I think waiting is a huge part of faith, and something we don't often talk about. Just believe and you will receive, we hear. Just have faith. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened. Be healed! But who says it's presto! and not a process? 

Often the best things in life take time. A happy marriage. A loving family. Fitness. A garden. A tasty meal. Becoming proficient at a skill or craft. Acquiring knowledge. Seeing the view from the top of a mountain. A tropical holiday (after saving for a year or more!). 

I've been reading When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd, and I am loving all the truth gems I'm relating to in it. 

" What has happened to our ability to dwell in unknowing, to live inside a question and coexist with the tensions of uncertainty? Where is our willingness to incubate pain and let it birth something new? What has happened to patient unfolding, to endurance? These things are what form the ground of waiting. And if you look carefully, you'll see that they're also the seedbed of creativity and growth -- what allows us to do the daring and to break through to newness."  

"When it comes to religion today, we tend to be long on butterflies and short on cocoons. Somehow, we're going to have to relearn that the deep things of God don't come suddenly. It's as if we imagine that all of our spiritual growth potential is dehydrated contents to which we need only add some holy water to make it instantly and easily appear."

So true. Let's remember to embrace the waiting. It will be worth it in the end. A developing butterfly can't be hurried.