Waiting is not cool or fun. I’m impatient while waiting for anything – the light to turn green, for a video to buffer, for the book I want to come out in paperback because I’m too cheap and/or it messes with my OCDness to buy a series in a mixture of hard back and paperback (weird, I know.) I don’t like to wait.
Somehow people get the impression that singles and waiting go hand in hand. We’ve been told it all our lives – wait for God to bring that special someone into your life, true love waits (more on that later this week), just you wait God’s just putting the finishing touches on the person He has for you. I feel that these are all sort of dumb things to say on many levels, but that’s not really the point of today’s blog. The point is that waiting has begun to have a negative connotation to singles. It implies a few things: (1) that there’s nothing to be done on our part – we just have to wait, (2) that waiting is bad, boring, and/or a giant lesson in practicing self control – because true love waits, and (3) that life is on hold until you get married – since we should wait and see what God has around the corner before we make any major decisions.
But, Christmas has reminded me that waiting can be good. You see as a kid we waited all through the Christmas season to open the gifts under the tree. We waited with great anticipation and expectation for what the tearing away of cartoon character paper would reveal. We couldn’t stand to not know what those gifts were. What did mom and dad get me? Finally the morning came that we’d been waiting for all month long. There was excitement as we saw the hoped for toy or doll, but part of the joy of Christmas morning was not in actually getting the gift but it was the anticipation of receiving the gift that had us so excited that we couldn’t sleep. In other words there is a joy and an excitement that comes in the waiting, in the longing, in the desiring of the good gifts that the Lord will bestow on His children.
Christmas, in the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn, meant the coming of the long expected Jesus. That waiting was full of hope for the promised Messiah who would save His people. Christmas meant the end of 400 years of silence. That waiting was full of expectation – when will God speak to us and how? Christmas, for Mary, meant that 9 months of pregnancy and a night of labor had come to an end. That waiting was full of anticipation for what this baby would mean to this small family and to a world in need of a Savior. Christmas is surrounded by waiting.
The difference is that this waiting implies something good. I like that. Anticipating, expecting, hoping are words full of life. I want to expect good things to come into my life – people, experiences, the long sought after perfect cup of hot chocolate. I want to be hopeful for the future – future travel, future jobs, future shopping! I want to live anticipating what incredible thing God will do next in my life. Waiting isn’t a bad word; at least not when it’s filled with hope. I think the waiting is part of the gift and it’s the waiting that will make me cherish and appreciate the actual gift once received that much more.
I don’t like waiting, but I do like hoping! The best is yet to come!
There’s more to be said on this…..but you’ll have to wait for part 2!
I enjoyed reading this! A friend and I had almost this same conversation over the weekend. I've also decided that one of my favorite parts about the Spanish language is that the words "wait" and "hope" are one in the same. They got it right!
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