The Waiting Place...
...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
Oh the waiting. I remember waiting to have kids, wondering if we were ever going to. This was especially hard after I miscarried my first pregnancy. I felt like we had already waited so long, I didn't understand why I had to wait even longer. After many prayers and a few priesthood blessings, I heard an answer.
You see, I'm a planner. While the boys and I eat breakfast in the mornings I ask them what they want to do during the day. I like to write things on calendars and know what's going to happen when. I like long-term planning too. Basically, I think I just like to be in-charge. All the time. This makes the waiting even harder.
The answer that I got? My plan, my timeline, is not always Heavenly Father's. And while it's hard, one of the things that I needed to learn from that experience was patience. Ah patience, that often illusive trait that I pray for daily. And not just patience. I needed to learn that maybe I didn't always have the best answer. I needed to learn to trust Heavenly Father. I needed to learn that my ways were not necessarily His ways.
My wait ended up being much shorter than many other's. Peter was born almost one year after the miscarriage. He came when he was supposed to, I know that now. I can see in retrospect that blessings came from waiting, even if the waiting wasn't my choice.
A few days ago I read this post on my friend LeMira's blog (and I'm pretty certain it came from another friend of mine, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong LeMira). It describes the answer that I got. Go read it. That poem has had me thinking all week about waiting. We're waiting for things now, things that might determine future plans. I'd love to know right now where we'll be in a year, but I must wait.
And that's okay.
4 comments:
I'm a planner too, short, and long-term. I remember when you had your miscarriage, I was so sad for you. I think Roni and I were your visiting teachers at the time, and I wished there was something I could do.
I love those poems, and another song I love that goes along with waiting on the Lord's time is "You KNow Better Than I" if you haven't heard it, here's a link to the music video from a movie about Joseph, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRSEDL1mGlI
During the moving of everything in the house, because of the refurbishing I found Margot singing tapes starting when you were 12 years old. I have been enjoying them in the car. One of them is "Your ways are not My ways, my child" I don't know if that is the name of the song, but it is the theme and seems to be aplicable today.
I really like "Oh, The Places You'll Go." And I agree that waiting and not knowing things can be really difficult. If I've learned nothing else from being in the military AND a military spouse at the same time, I've learned that there are things that you can't change, processes that can't be sped up even if you'd like them to, and things that you won't know until the last minute. You have to roll with though, because you'll go crazy otherwise.
Because of this, I have officially adopted two methods that seem to work pretty well. The first is to not stress over things that I cannot do a thing to change. The second is to take one day at a time. I'm counting down, so I know outrageous number like: Ian will be gone on deployment approximately 200 days, and that as of today, I have 920 days left in the Navy. Those are big numbers, but I get to make it smaller on a daily basis, and I like that. :)
This comment is way too long and probably way to rambly also. :p Oh well.
I find myself waiting a lot for things. So much so that I realize time has passed and all I did was wait... not fully enjoying my life. I'm trying harder not to do that so much.
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