The Waiting Place Again

I don’t know about you, but waiting for me is hard. Yet, I feel like I have spent so much of my life waiting. There is a tension about being in the middle. I am slowly getting more comfortable with that tension. Many times the middle seasons are incredibly rich times of growth. One way to conceptualize different areas of our lives (relationships, work, personal life, spiritual life- really any area of your life) is to think about it through the lens of a seasonal metaphor. Summer is when you are really invested in something and everything is flowing. You have a high level of commitment and you are in the groove. If you envision actually summertime, it is a time when flowers are blooming, fruit is ripe and everything is full of life. When something in your life moves to fall, you begin to see a decline in energy and an increase in frustration. What used to be working just does not work any more. You may feel like you are on the outside looking in at that area of your life. You don’t have the same commitment that you did in summer but you haven’t yet let it (whatever it is) go. Actual fall time, is full of change including leaves falling and what was blooming in summer begins to die. Then, there is the season of winter. Winter is a time of hibernation and of a complete emptying of what was once growing. Winter is a time (metaphorically) of turning inward. In fact, trees conserve their energy and animals find places to hide. What was once blooming in now completely dead or gone. In winter, you really let go and face this time between dreams and hopes. A lot is happening in winter but its significance is often lost on the outside world. Spring is a season when new life begins to pop up and sometimes this happens slowly. In spring (metaphorically), new ideas begin to come to mind and it is a good time for testing out new plans and dreams. Eventually this area of your life will hopefully return again to summer- where you are in your element and passion and all seems right in the world. Yet, one important lesson is that, EVERY season of your life is important. EVERY season has important lessons and gifts. It is a good idea to pay attention to where you are and honor it. How about you? Think about various areas of your life: work, relationships, family, spiritual or other areas? What are you feeling? If you are in an in between time, don’t despise it. It will produce good fruit if you don’t give up hope. Blessings.

Poem to Describe: “The Waiting Place Again”

Checking phone, thinking into the future
Not able to be here because too much is uncertain
That word, uncertain, it is hard to hear and to bear
The in between, not settled

So long, wandering in the desert or the swamp
Not able to get that traction, that yes
In order to move forward beyond the grey
When will the path clear
The clouds part, the cobwebs be swept away

Waiting, waiting, waiting
For a bus to come, for the phone to ring
For the deadline to pass, for the diploma
For the ring, the promise, the new life

Somewhere we have lost the wonder of now
Yet is hard to endure at times
Imagine Jesus waiting to fulfill his destiny
The pain of knowing what would happen

The uncertainty he willingly placed himself into
God places himself in uncertainty 
Allowing us choice, yes or no
Nothing is forced in God’s economy

A day is like a thousand years
This cross to bear feels like too much
Too much waiting, uncertainty, confusion
Humans often prefer the closure, the decision

The painful middle place
A place of sharpening, of pruning
Squirming, wishing it to be over
This uncertainty shows my distrustful heart

Stop shining the flashlight in my face
I get it, but it still hurts
It feels like walking on coals
Fingernails on a chalkboard

Not sure how much can be endured
This in between is like a rubber band 
Pulled back, will it break from the force
Or, will it soar to its destination

Who knows, that is the point
Nothing is known here
This waiting place is a blank canvass
Full of question marks