Waiting Well...

Mondays are always a little out of sorts around here. Especially after a busy weekend or a holiday. I usually use my Monday to play catch up. To clean from the weekend. To sort through and pick up. To get us back on track for another week. Our Sundays are usually packed with stuff all day so Monday is my day to regroup.

Since yesterday was our anniversary, I just assumed we would go out to eat. But as I cleaned the kitchen I realized that we had a refrigerator full of leftovers that needed to be eaten. The food would not be good in another day. So we postponed our celebration and ate leftovers. My youngest daughter looked at me and said that she could not believe we were going to not celebrate our anniversary. This morning I have been thinking about her confusion over our willingness to postpone our date.

If you have read this blog for a while, then you know that I am all about cultivating a home of celebration.  My daughter knows that and she was confused by the delay. I wonder if I have done a good job of teaching my children that waiting is not necessarily "not doing". Sometimes the right thing involves waiting for the right time. Have I taught my girls to wait for His perfect timing? We learn spiritual truths through everyday logic. But as parents, it is our job to model those truths.

I teach my kids to wait their turn. To wait in line. To wait until they are older. To wait until marriage. To wait for the right college or job or boyfriend. But do I model waiting well? Do I believe the promises that God has given me concerning my girls? Do I stand in the gap for them and refuse to move? Do I postpone my opinion or my judgement or my punishment because there are leftovers from the circumstance still being used by God? Do I teach them that what God began in them will be taken to completion?

I believe all those things. I believe God for their futures. But do I model the waiting well? Mary believed God about Jesus. I wonder if it was hard to stand in that belief during those 33 years. Noah believed God and built an ark. I wonder how he modeled that belief to his sons on those long days of floating. Abraham believed God for a son but we know that he faltered in his waiting.

I don't know the answer but I know the One who is the model. I want to be a parent that waits well. That refuses to believe what the world is saying but stands firm in the promises of God. I want to be a parent that knows what standing in the gap means and stays put. I want my girls to see me waiting for the right time. Waiting on His promises. I want them to know that mom will not move until those promises come to pass. No matter how long that takes.

He promises me that in my waiting He will renew my strength. That I will mount up with wings like an eagle. That I can keep running the race but I will not grow weary. That if I continue to walk in His ways I will not faint. He promises that in the waiting we will all be blessed.

Read Isaiah 40:31 today. Let's learn to wait well.

"Nothing is wasted when you walk close to Me. 

Even your mistakes and sins can be recycled

 into something good, through My transforming Grace." 

~ Jesus Calling.