Inside Waiting
There’s always a lot of talk on the other side of waiting. Talk about how God was faithful, and how much he came to do from that space. We hear this a lot in church, the reminder, “God is faithful, God is soverign, God is good.”
But whats uncomfortable, excruciating even, is the sitting in the lostness, of all that waiting. Where the fog feels so thick you cannot see forward. When the desert spans greatly, and you know no matter how far you walk, today wont be the day to find this deserts end. Its in the pain you cannot fix, and the barriers that wont come down. Its the quivering lip, of far too many tears. The numbness, the faith thats gripping, but running out of strength.
No one talks about this. No one talks about it, because there are never easy answers here.
Im a woman of sacred blessing. A husband who loves me and has from the beginning. Someone of loyalty and seeing me, even when I cannot smile and lack the ability to sometimes see the light. I am a mother, probably life’s greatest privilege, and I see my daughters daily grow into people of light, people who thrive in goodness, power and with feet on the rock. I stand straight to support these loves, loves I know few will ever know… and yet within myself I wander. Knowing I will not find its edge, I walk that desert and still pray to.
Sometimes I do not hear God but still chose to trust him. Sometimes I don’t talk to Jesus but I know hes still with me, an arm around my shoulder. Grief can be overwhelming and my sense of self can dwindle. Sometimes I wonder if I even exist, or if I am some fairy fluttering around my home that only my husband and my daughters can see. I did not ask the world to forget me, I asked that God would allow me to see the world and tell those forgotten in it that they were not. Now that feels like me.
I am learning, and I am growing, and I am healing from many years of far too many wars. I carry the scars on my body and the wreckage in my mind, and yet still despite that, I am also growing a new garden there. I am both the fire and the river, the warmth that brings safety and the cold that causes one to feel alone. I am many things, and I am nothing… and I do not want to feel this way forever.
The waiting, the stuckness, the silence, and these invisible chains… can I rest my hands down long enough, to stop feeling their very great weight. Can I find the strength to rip them free, to find my peace and maybe be happy again? I should be happy, and yet I feel empty. I should I should I should and I should, but aloneness, sadness, emptiness… they operate by no rules. Its why they hurt so much, because there’s nothing you can do but accept, and pray for a better day.
