In the Waiting
This isn’t a 2021 recap, nor is this a look toward 2022. This is also not an explanation necessarily of this blog title. Nope. This is an honest reflection of how I feel in my current season of waiting.
Right now I’m waiting for three things that range from fairly mundane to downright miraculous. Let’s start with the mundane.
Much to my chagrin or my delight (still processing this), my return to office has been delayed once again. If you were to tell me back in March 2020 that I would still be working from home nearly two years later, I wouldn’t have believed you. I genuinely thought we’d be at home for a week, maybe a month but not 661 days and counting. Not only are we still not in the office, we’re back to the really unnerving “TBD” on a return day from WFH. It’s unnerving because as a planner I have absolutely no guidelines or framework for what’s to come. As someone who probably is neurodivergent — change is really difficult for me. So this nebulous stage we’re in once again is frustrating, exhausting and relieving? Because truth be told, as an introvert — WFH has been wonderful, if not perhaps a little damaging. I’ve realized I have less capacity for socialization than I did before. Which isn’t great but it has given me space and room for things I love, like reading and creating and just being. Returning to my “little dreamer” roots has been restorative and delightful. But I also know that I’m called to live in community which means I need more bandwidth for people and WFH doesn’t build that. So while I’m relieved I don’t have to stretch my capacity just yet, I’m also frustrated I can’t plan and exhausted by the unknown change that I know I’ll want to process. It’s a lot. But it’s reminding me of important truths. This whole WFH situation reminds me that
God is in control and everything is in His timing. He knows when I’ll return to work and has since day one. So all the best made plans and delays on my part or the company I work for’s part aren’t surprises to Him. At all.
Because God is in control and everything happens in His timing — I don’t need to worry about it. I can rest in Him and enjoy being in the waiting. I can surrender my fears, worries, and hesitations both about continued WFH and about the eventual RTO and I can be at peace.
These reminders are key for me especially in light of the two other things I’m waiting on.
Currently I’m waiting on new life to emerge in the desert and for a miracle of restoration to happen. I’ve been in a season where the ground feels fallow. Nothing is growing, dreams feel dormant, life feels elusive and surviving is the name of the game. Concurrently, there’s a personal situation I’m facing where I’m waiting on a miracle of God to bring restoration to something that feels beyond dead and hopeless. These heavier things are a lot harder than the mundane waiting for the return-to-office but the truths I’m remembering practically in that situation also apply here.
God is in control and His timing is perfect. He breathes life into dry bones. It is His power alone that brings things into existence. My dreams are not dead. They are waiting for His timing and then they will bloom and flourish. Additionally, God’s in control and He works things out in His timing. He will bring restoration and healing back in this personal situation. Just as Jesus made a way so we could be reconciled to God, He will also make a way so we can be reconciled with one another. This situation isn’t outside His control. He’s got this.
He’s in control so I don’t need to worry. Which means I don’t need to feel a sense to strive for these dreams and will them into existence or get disappointed when an opportunity doesn’t pan out the way I had hoped. He’s given me gifts and dreams and desires and they are in His hands and I can actively wait for them, walking step-by-step with Him, doing what He prompts me to do and humbly surrendering the rest. It also means with reconciliation that I can rest. As my Mother-in-Law reminded me, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” I have done all I can personally do, it’s up to God to do the rest. I can rest in His peace, knowing that as much as my heart longs for restoration, His does so much more. I can pray and joyfully wait for the day of reunion, knowing that there is always hope and He will make a way.
Waiting isn’t easy. It requires humility and surrender. It requires acknowledgement that life doesn’t go our way. Our best made plans are useless. God is in control. But as I was also reminded today, He brings light and He is good.
So for all the flesh-killing, begrudging sanctification that can come with waiting, we can hold onto the truth that it is for our good. I can say, perhaps a little sourly, that this perpetual WFH season is for my good and His glory. I can believe that waiting on dreams and being told no, and other cyclical disappointments are ultimately for my good and His glory. I can believe that this season of disunity and brokenness is being redeemed and will bring Him all the glory.
Life in the waiting isn’t for the faint at heart. But we have a redeemer who brings us strength and I’m holding onto Him this season as I wait for things to be made new. And maybe, just maybe, these things will come to fruition in 2022 and I won’t have to wait for them for forever. But if not, I will hold onto the truth that He is in control and He is good.