Waiting is hard sometimes... especially when you don't know when something will happen.
Like when I was a kid... the tornado warnings would come on and we would all go sit in the closet under the stairs and watch the TV from the door. I would play with Legos and I have vivid memories of this picture of an owl that was made by stringing thread from nail to nail that was in this closet due either to incompleteness or ugliness, I cant remember. And you just don't know if something is going to happen or not. I much prefer the earthquakes of Southern California (even if I still run for door for the little ones) because of their immediacy. They happen and then they are over.
And a constant state of readiness... can be exhausting. This is why the army finds an invasion force much better than an occupying force. An invasion force is on the move with time tables and strategy whereas an occupying force is sitting around waiting for something to happen, not knowing when or where it will happen but knowing that it will. Its a nerve racking dreariness.
And in waiting for a baby to come, I feel all of this. Every day people say, "When's the baby coming?" and I have to say is, "I don't know". I cant even use what I used to say to people "Well she's due on the 6th" since that has since come and gone. Now its just a constant exercise of readiness in waiting. Waiting is hard. Because I'm used to just doing it. Just Do It.
And I realize I probably have this same problem with God. I don't really want to wait for Him. I feel like I'm out of step some times, either too far ahead or too far behind like a puppy who runs ahead of his master and strains at his leash only to find some interesting smell from which the master has to drag him. The master never changed. His pace was consistent, steady and yet always feels like an inconvenience.
And the baby's pace hasn't changed, consistently and steadily growing in Sarah's womb. It will come when the growth has culminated in a new and pressing need to be in the world and not protected from it. Soon, it will come. But the waiting is the hardest part.
"You take it on faith...
You take it to the heart...
But the waiting is the hardest part."
-Tom Petty
