Shirley
The privilege of waiting
It is an utter privilege and honour to wait with and on God!
Anyone who has ever been in a prolonged waiting season will tell you that waiting is difficult. It is excruciating, it will unravel you and force you to face your own humanity and its many limitations. It can destroy you because in many instances it will force you to have to come to terms with the possibility of a life without the thing that you are waiting for, and the grief of this can be catastrophic because often times when you look around it will seem like everyone else is receiving but you. For me the waiting has been about being a wife and mother. The grief has been unimaginable, it has come in waves and has been amplified with every age I have crossed into after turning 31, and it has gotten heavier as I have gotten older. However, the same waiting that can tear you down, is the same waiting that can help build you up to be the best version of yourself, but only if you allow God into your waiting, and I am a testament to that! Yes, grief and extreme hopefulness can exist in the same moment.
For someone else the waiting may be about a promotion, employment, marriage, higher learning, a child, healing, forgiveness, wealth etc. The truth is that all of us will wait or have something we are waiting for in every season of our lives. That is just part and parcel of the human experience. For me I have waited for many things in my life but the thing that has been most consistent in every season has been waiting to be a mother and a wife. The interesting part about this one area of my life is that I know without a doubt or have always known that I was born to be a wife and mother. I am a wife and mother. I have always been one. I have moved on this earth as one. I have always had a knowing about being a wife and mother that I cannot explain or put into words. I can identify with it yet I have never seen its manifestation physically or even gotten close to it. I have strategised, plotted, and prayed about it, but it has never happened tangibly except for my spiritual knowing. So yes, I have gone through many disappointments, doubt and have been tired and wary in this one area, but whenever I remember the God I serve, the God of Abraham and Sarah, I come to. I remember that He is the one who created me, and predestined me, and that He has a specific plan for my life. So, I hold on in faith that I will be a mother and a wife. Afterall, I have always been a mother and a wife. I was born when I was already a mother and a wife even before my mother felt me in her womb, and I will never doubt that.
The waiting though has been long and persistence. Nonetheless, it has not been in vain or for naught. In the time that I have had to wait which is over 10 years, I have learnt how wonderful and how much of a privilege it is to wait, it has taught me empathy and given me the most outrageously magical lens with which to view my life. In the waiting I have come to see God in ways that I would never have known if I never had this prolonged and unrellenting season of waiting. He has been my everything. It has not been an easy journey, but when I look back, I can see Him. God has been so kind and gentle with me. He has been my father, friend, companion, therapist, encourager, protector, redeemer, healer, father, confidant, coach, comforter, teacher, mentor. He has laughed with me, cried with me, encouraged me, disciplined me. He is my lover, healer, stylist, hair and beauty consultant, finacial adviser, nutritionist, fitness and health coach, career coach, provider in every way even in providing me with community, my muse and creative inspiration and the list goes on and on. He has been my everything, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that He is enough, and if I never become a wife or a mother, I am whole, and I will be just fine because I have Him.
I choose to be an extreme optimist. I choose to stand on my faith. I chose to live by faith that if God said it will happen, then yes it will happen, and that if it does not happen like or in the manner that I imagined that it will be even greater!
So, yes, I reiterate and shout it to the mountain tops, it is difficult, but also wonderful to wait on the Lord. How precious it is to be trusted with the privilege and honour to suffer, to wait with and on Christ. To see Him with every unveiling of ‘not yet’ and to find Him as consitently enough . How glorious it is to know that God is the only one who holds the key, and that at the appointed time the door which has always seemed impregnable will be torn down and He will restore every tear, pain, fear, doubt, and every humiliation suffered as a result of waiting. And that every day you felt forgotten, He will give you double for your trouble and elevate you that much higher.
Yes, how wonderful it is to be chosen to wait. To have access to God in a way you would never have known possible if you had never waited. To know for sure without a doubt that He is indeed enough because you waited.
Yes, my God was and will always be enough!
Picture from : www.freepik.com(no author attributed)