This Waiting Made Sacred

We all go through times of waiting.
Waiting
Hoping
Perhaps all of our lives are spent waiting.
Patient
My waiting usually looks impatient and discontent.
My waiting usually is spent trying to arrive.
If all of our lives are supposed to be made sacred, how can this waiting become sacred? How can this waiting become beautiful?
If all of our lives are meant for God’s glory, how can we lean into this waiting instead of resisting and pulling back?
Lean in
Expectancy
Henri Nouwen, a Dutch theologian, writes about waiting as an active kind of waiting.
He speaks of those at the beginning of the Gospels (Mary, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon, Anna) as waiting with a sense of promise. A promise that allows them to wait. Nouwen says that the secret of waiting is the faith that something has already begun.
Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it. ~ Waiting for God
It is a waiting that knows the waited-for thing has already begun.
Like planting a seed and waiting for it to emerge. Like seeing the plus sign on the pregnancy test and waiting to hold the baby in your arms.
It is a knowing that there are beautiful things happening in the darkness. It is a knowing that even though you cannot see, it is growing.
Growing
Becoming
It is a giving up of control because none of us quite know what we are waiting for when God is involved.
Rather than waiting for a job or a baby or a spouse, we are waiting for whatever God chooses to give. We hold our expectations and dreams lightly, with cupped open hands, knowing that whatever comes is ultimately the best thing of all.
It is a giving up of control but it is a gift of surprise and adventure, of something even better than what you had imagined.
Eyes wide open
It is a waiting with eyes open and breath held in expectation. Expectation of beauty and excitement.
Sacred waiting
This is a waiting I can lean in to. A beautiful, sacred waiting that glorifies God.

Art credit: Final photograph of crab apple blossoms by Kirk Sewell

Be Still and Wait

Be still.
Be Still
Wait.
Wait
Be still and wait for God.
Wait for God
Be still and wait for God to come.
God will come
Advent is waiting and so we become still while we wait for Him to come down and rescue us.
We pause in our fighting and our striving, we rest from our grieving and our mourning, we stop to breathe in our busyness and our too much.
Just for a moment.
It doesn’t take any of it away. Yet.
But we become still like Moses with the Red Sea before and the Egyptian army after and we wait for God to fight for us.
We who have lived with the pain for far too long, we who have just received the phone call and sit at our kitchen table in stunned silence, we who can’t see how we will put one foot in front of the other much less get up from our beds in the morning, we who hide in our closets and weep our wracking sobs while we rock back and forth,
God comes
just for one moment we become still.
We remember that God is and that He is fighting for us.
God fights for us
It doesn’t solve or heal any of it. Yet.
But it will.
God will heal us
Oh, how it will.
We become still and we wait for Emmanuel. We wait for Emmanuel, God-with-us, to come down.
We wait in this season and we wait in this life for our Emmanuel to come down and fight and make it all okay again.
So for just a moment, take a breath and remember how He already did this once to show us that He will do it again.
He is with us
Be still.
Emmanuel
Wait.

Breath

All of creation waits with inhaled breath.
Wait
Coming
Advent
We wait as in the space before the upraised baton falls in the darkened symphony hall.
We wait as in the space before stepping over the threshold of home.
We wait as in the space before the first glimmer of dawn sparks into the darkest part of the night.
We wait with inhaled breath for the breath of God to arrive.
Breath
For the breath of God to arrive and breathe in the air of this world and breathe out the grace of heaven.
As we bundle ourselves against the cold and breathe out frost into the air, so we can’t help but breathe in a breath of hope even as we bundle our hearts against disappointment.
But God is a God of hope, so we can breathe easy and unbundle our hearts to the warmth of His love.
Hope
Grace
He did, after all, come once before and draw our air into His lungs and in so doing, foreshadowed the way He will come once again and exhale perfection into the very breath of the fabric of our world.
And so, as we wait with inhaled breath, we breathe out love and grace to those we see around us so that they, too, can breathe in a breath of hope
and wait for the breath of God to arrive in our world once more.
Here

When You Can’t See Your Next Step

We wander around in the dim light.
Dim Light
Lost in a twilight we hope will end in glorious dawn yet are frightened may only lead to utter darkness, we stumble around and squint about us for a path.
We can ever only see the next step, sometimes two, but we still strain our eyes towards the horizon, searching for a ray of the sun.
Twilight
Other shadows stumble near us and we are as likely to swing out clumsily to protect our frightened selves as we are to welcome them as companions on a journey.
All we can do is cling to Jesus, to that name, whatever it means to each of us. We cling to the Word and are disappointed that it is a lamp and not a floodlight.
lamplight
Yet as we stumble and search, if we keep our eyes on that dim pool of lamplight, we find that it is enough. We find that a circle of candlelight is enough to keep us from falling flat on our faces if we will only keep our eyes on our own path instead of casting them around farther ahead or behind.
candlelight
Asking for our daily bread keeps us crying out that we need Him every hour rather than only every week or so.
And so the dim light helps rather than hinders. It keeps us clutching the One who knows where we ought to be rather than stubbornly crawling off the edge of a cliff because we have the right and freedom to do so.
Perhaps the searchlight of God would be enough to turn us to stone and make us beg for the soft familiar lamplight again.
soft guiding light
We all wander around in the murky light.
And if we can only remain content in our small circle of candlelight, then one day we will see, perhaps only out of the corner of our eyes at first, the first rays of Him who is the Light of the world breaking through our mist and burning it all away for a glorious dawn.
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee;
Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

A post from the archives due to a week full of holidays, family moving, end of the year field trips, and big decisions.

My Little Circle of Lamplight

We wander around in the dim light.
Dim Light
Lost in a twilight we hope will end in glorious dawn yet are frightened may only lead to utter darkness, we stumble around and squint about us for a path.
We can ever only see the next step, sometimes two, but we still strain our eyes towards the horizon, searching for a ray of the sun.
Twilight
Other shadows stumble near us and we are as likely to swing out clumsily to protect our frightened selves as we are to welcome them as companions on a journey.
All we can do is cling to Jesus, to that name, whatever it means to each of us. We cling to the Word and are disappointed that it is a lamp and not a floodlight.
lamplight
Yet as we stumble and search, if we keep our eyes on that dim pool of lamplight, we find that it is enough. We find that a circle of candlelight is enough to keep us from falling flat on our faces if we will only keep our eyes on our own path instead of casting them around farther ahead or behind.
candlelight
Asking for our daily bread keeps us crying out that we need Him every hour rather than only every week or so.
And so the dim light helps rather than hinders. It keeps us clutching the One who knows where we ought to be rather than stubbornly crawling off the edge of a cliff because we have the right and freedom to do so.
Perhaps the searchlight of God would be enough to turn us to stone and make us beg for the soft familiar lamplight again.
soft guiding light
We all wander around in the murky light.
And if we can only remain content in our small circle of candlelight, then one day we will see, perhaps only out of the corner of our eyes at first, the first rays of Him who is the Light of the world breaking through our mist and burning it all away for a glorious dawn.
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee;
Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

Waiting

Waiting.  Breathless.  Hopeful.  Fearful.
Fragile
Watching.  Gazing intently at this flickering light.  It is a light that at times appears so feeble it sometimes seems that it could be extinguished by a whisper.
Flickering
At times we blow gently, hoping the light will flare up and blaze forth to push out the darkness.  At other times we hide in the dark, weeping a prayer, desperate not to let our deep, ugly parts be known.
Flame
We desire the light and we fear it.  This light is love.  It is not a weak, self-centered, human love.   This is mighty and humble, king and servant, cross- and pain-bearing love.
Love Light
This is Love who will take that flickering candlelight and fan it into flame that overcomes darkness, even our own.  Flame that someday will refine and purify our entire world, purging away dross and imperfection, giving to all of us redeemed perfection results.
Blazing
And we wait.  Wait for Christmas.  Wait for Christ.  Wait to be known.  Wait to be redeemed.
We wait with our breath held.  We wait with a labored kind of waiting, waiting with pregnant hope for our world to be reborn.
And while we wait, we work.  We serve.  We keep our eyes fixed on that flickering light.
Flame
We still weep and fear, but more than that, we love.  We can love through our fear because we who wait have seen the end.  And this fearful love that will destroy our world and even our very selves will bring out of the ashes a world and a self that is truer and more beautiful than any we could have imagined.  Love Himself will bring us through.
And the waiting will be over.
There are wild things
just beyond the creche.
Pry loose an Advent
candle from its round
wreath and walk straight
past the doe-eyed virgin,
deeper into the world
he was born to save.
Jettison your meekness.
Cup your hand over the
flame, you’ll be exposed.
No, don’t look for a star.
Instead listen for the carol
of the trees as the wind
repeats its sounding joy.
You’ll feel more lost than
saved but that’s how the
prophets say it will feel
the closer your journey to
the coming arrival.
~ The Beautiful Due

The Years the Locust Ate

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you…
Beauty
A beautiful set of verses in Joel.  Verses filled with hope, with new life and new beginnings.
Drought
Yet I hate with all of my being that there were entire years that were eaten by locusts.  I hate that people had to endure that pain and despair before they could reach the end point of being satisfied and praising God.
The memories of those years don’t go away.
And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends.  And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before…And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.  And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.  He had also seven sons and three daughters…And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, four generations.  And Job died, an old man, and full of days.
Flourishing
Another beautiful set of verses in Job.  Verses filled with hope, with new life and new beginnings.
Devastated
Yet Job still endured the loss of all that he had.  He still watched all of his children die and, as any of you who have lost children know all too well, no number of new children can ever take away the pain of losing those who came before.
It is a heart filled with mixed emotions, this kind of hope.  It is joy and excitement over the beauty of what lies ahead and it is sorrow and grieving over what happened in the past.
Autumn Blazes
This is life.
Life and Death
It is beauty that is tinged with sorrow.  It is love that is colored by loss.  All who live deeply are affected.  None are exempt except for those who choose not to love.
God speaks beautiful words about our future with Him, words filled with promise, words filled with satisfaction and praise and joy. What do we do with this apparent contradiction?  How do we get from this common suffering to a perfect life filled with perfect joy?
One option is that it is all a big hoax.  None of this hope is true; it is all just a ruse to keep us from rebelling too hard against our lot in life.
Those who have known God long enough to catch a glimpse of His character, though, know that He is not given to such cruel jokes.
Jesus with Samaritan Woman
If you keep God in the picture, this God who is the very definition of love, than you are left with the answer that it is somehow all worth it. If God is who He says He is, if His words are trustworthy and true, then somehow the end is so brilliantly glorious that it will eclipse the darkness that came before.
Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.  ~ C.S. Lewis
So what do we do with this hope that is so full of wildly contradicting emotions?  I don’t understand how this sort of ending is at all possible when the sorrow seems so great.  Yet like Abraham, we are asked to keep trusting in the face of apparent impossibility.  Trusting that what God said to Abraham is truth for all: “Is anything too hard for the LORD?”
Light
On our best days we are able to trust that, in the end, we will be so seized by the sight of His face that we will fall to the ground at His feet in pure adoration. And all that came before will be as a vacuous mist that is chased away by the brilliant light and heat of the sun.

Art Credits: Sunlight Through Tulips photo by Kirk Sewell; Christ and Samaritan Woman painting by Siemiradzki; Sunlight Through Trees photo by Kirk Sewell

Patience

Today’s post is written by Amanda Wen, a good friend whom I met while in worship ministry at our church. She is an amazing musician and I could listen to her play cello all day, I think! We have a lot of fun playing together. We have had all three of our children within months of each other, which made it even harder when they moved away from us. She was pregnant with her first when she came to visit me in the hospital after birthing my first. She asked if the labor (30+ hours!) was worth it, to which I think I replied, “Ask me in a couple of weeks.” She, too, is a wise and funny friend, which is a beautiful combination. If you want to read more of her writings, visit her blog: Life, The Universe, and Pachelbel at oucellogal.livejournal.com. You’ll have to ask for an invitation to read, but it’s well worth it!

 

There’s a joke that if you pray for patience, God will give you children. I don’t recall ever praying specifically for patience, but I have three children anyway: two boys, ages two and almost four, and a little girl due in January. (note from Elizabeth: Amanda had her baby, Selah Joy, on January 16. Mommy and Baby are both doing beautifully!) I see a lot of myself in both of my boys, but it is my older one who is most like me: stubborn, high-strung, and disinclined to tolerate change, disruption of a routine, and being told to wait. This conversation takes place frequently:
Him: When are we going to do (desirable activity)?
Me: At (time).
Him: But THAT’S TOO LONG. (He says this even if the aforementioned time is only ten minutes away).
Me: Then you’ll just have to be patient.
(Sorry, kid. You got some lousy genetic material from your mommy).
Right now, I feel stuck in a season of waiting. My musical career is currently taking a backseat to my children, one of whom I am not-so-patiently waiting to meet. As a freelancer, I have no guarantees from anyone that my job will be waiting for me when I resurface, so every time the phone rings with a job opportunity I must turn down, I wonder when they will eventually give up on me and stop calling. And I watch, and more than occasionally envy, the blossoming careers of some close friends and wonder if I will ever join their ranks.
So many others wait for things that are so much bigger, so much more important, than this. They wait for healing. They wait for relief from financial pressures. They wait for children, for a spouse, for someone they love dearly to come to know the Lord.
How are we to be patient in situations like these?
In recent weeks, I’ve been studying the life of Abraham in my Bible Study Fellowship class. Abraham was a guy with some pretty inspiring faith, faith I know I do not possess. He had a comfortable life in a wealthy, sophisticated city, with no reason to leave, except that God called him to do exactly that.
1The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Let’s take a closer look at that first part: God calls Abram to “a land I will show you.” Translation: Abram didn’t even know where he was going. Yet he obeyed.
God also promises that he will make Abram a great nation, yet at this point in his life, Abram was about seventy-five, his wife sixty-five, and they had no children. Yet he believed.
I appreciate that the Bible does not make it sound like Abram believed effortlessly, without mistakes or stumbles. In the course of the quarter-century he waited for God to fulfill this precious promise of a child, he lied out of fear, he took matters into his own hands and had a child with his wife’s servant, and he questioned God on many occasions. Genesis 15 records one of these conversations:
2But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
4Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” 5He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Of course, we know the rest of the story. Abraham and Sarah eventually gave birth to Isaac, their long-awaited miracle child.
So how do we get this sort of patience?
We can’t do it on our own. That’s something I know for a fact, because I have tried, on numerous occasions, and failed. “Just be patient” is useless advice ( and something I’d do well to remember when dealing with my oldest)!
And the Bible makes this clear. In John 15:5, Jesus says, “…apart from me you can do nothing.”
But at the beginning of the verse, Jesus says something amazing and wonderful. “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”
Fruit…like love, joy, peace…and patience.
Paul learned this lesson, as we see in the fourth chapter of Philippians.
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Only by remaining steadfast in Jesus can we learn to wait for the things he has promised us. To be honest, I’m not entirely certain what that looks like, either, but if I am to learn how to be patient, how to teach my children to be patient, I am determined to find out. So I will endure, I will look to him when I struggle, I will ask him for help even before I find myself struggling, and I will trust his promise that his word will not return empty, that he does intend to fulfill the promises he has made to me, that he will enable me to do everything he has called me to do.
Even to be patient.

I Am Waiting

I am waiting.


I am waiting for orders to arrive so that they can be made beautiful with paper and ribbon.

I am waiting for this beautiful new life within me to be born into this world.

I am waiting as my Papa fights this cancer.

I am waiting.


We wait each evening, eyes bright with candlelight, watching Mary wind her way around to Bethlehem.


Advent. Waiting.

As I am still and wait in this Advent, I dimly grasp that all of life is waiting.
I am waiting for peace on earth. 


I am waiting for joy to fill up our world.

I am waiting on God. 

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret–it leads only to evil.

I am waiting for Christ to come and for all to be made right again.

The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still. 

I wait in Advent for Word to become flesh.


I wait in Time for Word to return again and repair this broken world, heal my sin-broken heart.

I am waiting for a tiny baby to come quiet in Bethlehem. For an angel to sing glory. For shepherds to rush breathless. For wise men to bow humbled.

I am waiting for Christ to come.

As I wait, I find that He has, in truth, been Emmanuel, God with us, all through the full time of our waiting.


I am still.

I am waiting.

Be Still and Wait

Be still


Hush


Wait



Advent


Do you hear it?


It is a whisper in the darkness.


He is coming!


Can you feel it?


It is a gentle touch on your heart.


Love is coming!


Wait.


In the stillness, we feel it — His movements. In the stillness, our hearts leap — His coming! In the stillness, we know it– what falls down upon us — breath of heaven. ~ Ann Voskamp


Will you be still? 

Will you give God this one gift, the gift of you, of your full presence?


In the excitement and the sparkle. 


In the loneliness and the hurt.


Wait.


For just a few moments, hush and listen. Listen for that small whisper in your soul. Pause to feel God’s Spirit love your heart.


Love.


Peace.


Joy.


He comes!


We wait…and find that He has been Emmanuel, God with us, all along.


art credit: The Nativity by Antonio da Correggio; Advent Wreath carved by 15-year-old Caleb Voskamp (click on the link to order your own…he gives all proceeds to Compassion)

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