Waiting...

The space between where we will be and where we have been is a difficult place. It’s a blank space between the lines filled with interminable waiting. I’m in that waiting place right now, between the lines of my story, one foot here and one foot there, and I can’t seem to overcome the sense of anticipation that I feel.

To put it frankly and succinctly: waiting sucks.

So much of the stress we feel as humans comes from waiting, anticipating, looking too far ahead and trying to scheme our way into what appears to be best for us. Right now I’m facing the sell of our home on the other side of Washington state, Taxes and a job change – all at the same time. I don’t really know what the outcome of any of these things will be or what my life will look like in just two weeks time.

And yet, I think there is purpose to the waiting. I believe it is in the white space between lines that God best has our attention and can form and shape us, direct us. And that growth, that shaping, cannot be hurried.

On another level, the waiting space is the only space we ever really live in. The past is gone, and the future – which we so anticipate – is not yet come. All we are left with is the present moment, the place where we really exist.

So we are left with just a few choices. We can live in the past, fretting about what went wrong or living on past glories. We can live in the future in hope that things will be better or in fear of impending calamity. Or, we can trust in “the slow work of God” and live in the moment and really live.

Here is a little prayer that was just handed to me (and that sparked this blog) by my friend and pastor, Todd Scranton. The prayer is by Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, a French mystic monk with a hard name to pronounce. This is my hope and prayer for each of you.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

To reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way

To something unknown,

Something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that is made

By passing through some stages of instability

And that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.

Let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Do not try to force them on

As though you could be today what time

--that is to say, grace--

and circumstances

acting on your own good will

will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit

Gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

That His hand is leading you,

And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

In suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God,

Our loving Vine-dresser.

Amen.

I wish I wrote that!