Waiting

It's the time of year when we are all on the countdown...I think it started when I saw a Facebook post that told me it was 100 days until Christmas. Better get ready. Better start planning. Better start cruising around Pinterest to find all the cool crafty things that I have every intention of trying. At the end of all the planning and purchasing and wrapping, we wait.

We wait for so many things. We wait for a parking spot at the shopping centre, for our turn at the post office, for the kids to be finished with school for holidays....I wait for the day I hop on the airplane to visit my family and friends in the US.

But some of us have bigger waiting. Some of us wait for a miracle, an end to loneliness, a cure for illness, an end to debt, the beginning of love, the end of pain the beginning of a refreshed life. These are big things.

It seems to me that HOW we wait is just as important as what we are waiting for. Do we wait with a sense of hope and promise, or do we wait with our arms folded- tapping our foot? Would the outcome be any different either way? I suspect that the outcome of waiting would be the same, but maybe the waiting is a journey of its own. Maybe our waiting journey shows us patience, teaches us perseverance and Grace under pressure. Maybe when we receive the gift at the end of the waiting, it will be sweeter because of the waiting rather than in spite of it.

The people of Isreal waited. Mary waited. The world waited...waited for a Messiah- one who would bring wholeness and healing. The baby born at Christmas didn't just appear magically without warning. He required waiting. Hundreds and hundreds of years of promise- only to wait nine months for the birth...and another 30 odd years to speak his truth to the world.

Yes. There was waiting.

This year, I hope that you find peace in the journey of your waiting. Whether you are waiting for a heart to heal or waiting for the Joy in the faces of your children on Christmas morning, I hope that you will wait with anticipation and hope...and when the waiting is over, you will find the beauty in the journey.