WAITING: SOMETIMES EXCITING, SOMETIMES HARD

Is there anyone out there who likes waiting?

Sometimes I find waiting isn’t hard. Like now. We’ve settled into our new life here in central Florida and now I’m anxious to find out what the Lord has in store for us here.

The last time I was in this place of waiting was after my mom died. I had resigned my position as a leader in a Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) class so that I could remain in Florida with mom. I knew she had only a short time remaining to live and I wanted to spend what days she had left with her. Weeks later, when I returned home, the question that occupied me was, “What now?”.

I had been in leadership in BSF for about 18 years, the last four as the teaching leader, pretty much a full time occupation. While involved in BSF I was unable to serve in my church due to the responsibilities of leadership and now I had the time for that. I wanted to continue serving the Lord as a Bible teacher, but as I looked around I didn’t see any opportunities to do so in my church. So I started praying, asking the Lord for wisdom and direction.

Sometime in the very early fall the chairman of our children’s commission at church made an announcement that teachers were needed for the Sunday school program. Though I was praying for an opportunity to teach, teaching children was not on my list of job specifications. Teaching women was more like what I had in mind. There was a women’s study at church but they already had a long time teacher who didn’t look as if she was going anywhere soon. After the man sat down I could feel the nudge of the Spirit so, even though I didn’t really want to teach children, I went up to him and told him I’d pray about it.

As I sat in my pew during the service the Holy Spirit spoke clearly. I knew I really didn’t have to pray about it. I had already been praying and was pretty convinced this was God’s answer! When the service ended I told that man that I would gladly teach Sunday school. That act of obedience was the beginning of what would be several years of getting to know and teach an amazing bunch of kids, beginning when they were just fourth and fifth graders.

I didn’t know at the time that I would have the blessing, as the years went on, of getting to know and love them as I later worked for two years with the senior high youth group and also taught middle school Sunday school. I graduated up with that original class and then also had many of their siblings. Knowing them and seeing them grow in faith was a joy. I still keep track of them on Facebook from down here in Florida. The Lord added to my blessing later when the woman teaching the women’s Bible class moved and I became a Bible teacher to the women of our church who attended that as well.

What a great ending to all that waiting and praying for opportunities to serve the Lord after BSF. Here I am again in that very place. I long to teach, I believe God has gifted me to teach, but at the moment I don’t see any opportunities on the horizon. This kind of waiting excites me because I know my days of serving the Lord in that way aren’t over yet. Waiting fills me with the thrill of anticipation as I wait and watch for His divine appointments. Appointments I know will come because He has been faithful to provide them in the past.

But there’s another kind of waiting I’m doing now as well. Waiting I don’t find easy or joyful at all. I’m waiting for the Lord to do a work in the life of someone I love. It’s as if I’m watching the lights of a train, blowing its whistle and coming closer, and my loved one isn’t doing much to help herself get out of the way. I wake during the night thinking of her. I can’t sleep. I try to pray, but my mind keeps coming back to the train. I find it hard to wait and trust God during these times. Maybe you do too.

I’ve been in other situations where I’ve asked the Lord to intervene, to wake my loved one up, to shake them into seeing the danger, hearing the noise of the train. Years have passed and I haven’t seen it happen yet. But that doesn't mean He hasn't been active. What I have seen is God’s hand, protecting, extending grace, preserving life, giving time. The Bible reminds me, it’s still the day of salvation. Or as my husband is fond of telling me, “It’s not over yet."

So I wait, endeavoring to walk by faith in the God I KNOW hears and answers prayer, who is faithful, who is able to do what seems to me to be impossible – when the waiting is filled with joyful anticipation, and when it seems to take forever.

It wasn't always easy for the writer of Psalm 43 either. When the waiting was hard, he said:

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God;

For I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God.”

I need to remember his words when waiting makes my spirit down and disquieted within me. Hope in God, Dot. There will yet be reason to praise Him.

NOTHING TO SAY? REALLY?

I don’t know how people who write for a living do it.  I love to write, but will go weeks, sometimes even months, without having anything to say.  You’d think that with a move, from northeastern New Jersey, to southwest Florida, then to central Florida, all in the span of the last eight months, I’d have plenty of real life fodder for a blog.  You’d think. . . .  how about if I just ramble and see where it leads?

I can’t believe how long I resisted moving to Florida.  Jim would have gone as soon as he retired, years ago now.  I had my reasons for not wanting to go, EVER:  It’s hot, how will I manage?  What about leaving friends and family?  What about the absence of a change of seasons?  What about leaving our church family where we feel loved and “home”?  

Then Jim said, “What about a 55+ community?”  A “last straw” for me! I dug in my heels. “I don’t want to live with a bunch of old people,” said the nearly 70 year old woman who stared back at me from the mirror every morning!  

For quite some time I argued with myself (with much grumpiness and imagined foot stomping) over all things Florida and old people.  I asked the Lord to soften my heart if Florida was in His plan for us.  Eventually, I began to stop thinking of ME and start thinking of JIM, who worked hard and faithfully for 50 years with the same company to take care of us.  Shouldn’t I think of what makes him happy and not just what makes me happy?  Lo and behold, over the next couple of years, I discovered that I had made a complete about face in my thinking!  (Thank You, Lord!)  Suddenly it was, “Florida, here we come!”

But that wasn’t all.  A year ago we began looking at 55+ communities and bought a house in one!!  I’m still pinching myself.  We live in a lovely community with lots of friendly people – older and younger – than us.  They do things like play tennis, and pickle ball.  They swim and bike and fish and play golf.  I find that I’m rediscovering myself!

In our first house in New Jersey, we had this lovely sun room.  I filled it with plants and loved to take care of them and watch them thrive.  Our second house in Bergen County didn’t have a lot of natural light, so my gardening days were behind me.  Here, we have a community garden where I have a little garden bed and have started tomatoes and peppers.  How fun!  I plan to join the photography club and maybe do some crocheting with the sewing club too.  Then there are movie nights, ballroom dancing, an indoor pool, oh, and the gym.  I still hate it, but I go.

We’re surrounded by lakes where there is an abundance of waterfowl, including sandhill cranes, one of the largest birds in the world, with a 7 foot wing span!  I happened upon one of these majestic creatures the week we moved in.  Standing nearly to my chest, two of them were strolling down our sidewalk, and just for my entertainment, began squawking at me!  Now I can see them nesting in the nearby lake and am so excited to see adults and babies strolling around the grounds.

Part of what helped make the transition easier was that our youngest daughter and her family moved down just a few months ahead of us.  They have settled about 16 miles away, so we can have dinner together or get together at one of our homes for a barbeque, or go to Disney.  Having family here has helped us all through this time when we haven’t yet made friends.

Our church search continues.  We were surprised, here in the Bible belt, that it would take us so long to find a church that was not just doctrinally sound, with good preaching and an emphasis on the Bible, but also a place we might call “home”.  We searched the internet, listened to sermons from websites, checked our GPS to see how far they were, visited some.  We worshiped to the accompaniment of rock music, old hymns with a country twang, and a blend of hymns and praise choruses.  We had one awful experience of not only NOT being welcomed, but feeling decidedly unwelcomed – and survived!  

We thought we had found a church.  We even attended a coffee with the pastor to find out more.  It had all the components we were looking for, but neither of us felt like it was “home”.  Then someone told us about another church nearby.  We knew the denomination was more liberal, and so had excluded it from our search.  Then we heard the congregation had a parting of the ways with its denomination, so we decided to give it a try after all.  And we liked it.  It’s early to say, but we’ll definitely go back.  It just might become “home”.

Today was a glorious, spring like day.  During my quiet time I was thanking the Lord for the blessing of living in such a beautiful location, for a winter that feels a lot like spring back in New Jersey, for changing my mind about a move and helping me to love the place where I’m planted.

We’re still in transition (and haven’t yet experienced an entire Florida summer), but this new setting begins to feel more like home.  It took me about four years to do it, but I’m glad we made the move.

THE STORM RAGES, WHAT DO YOU DO?

It’s 5:30 AM and I’ve been awake for a couple of hours.  There’s a thunderstorm raging outside with torrential rain, heavy wind and periodic bursts of the lightening Florida is known for.  Jim, who jokingly says he sleeps the “sleep of the just” is happily zoning away in our bedroom.

Like everyone else, I’m sure, I wake up sometimes with things on my mind that won’t let me rest.  Tonight the storm woke me, but then my mind took over.  My brother is on my mind a lot these days, but there’s also another family issue that troubles me and disturbs my rest.  And then there are the exciting things, like a long anticipated move and furnishing our house.

What do you do when you can’t sleep?  I made coffee and tried reading for a while, hoping it would make me sleepy, but when I went back into bed, my mind was busy and the storm was loud.  So I did what I often do and began to worship the Lord.

Remember the saying, “When you can’t sleep, don’t count sheep, talk to the Shepherd?”  That’s what I do.  Long ago, I hit on what has become such a precious “can’t sleep” activity.  I begin worshiping the Lord for His attributes, beginning with the letter A and working through the alphabet.  I rarely get half way through before my mind lets go of its worries, rests in the awesomeness of my God, and I fall asleep.  I spent time doing that tonight and it was sweet, even if the noise of a storm still robbed me of sleep.

Let me share with you some of my thoughts.

Jesus is Almighty.  Mightier than a storm.  Mighty enough to keep my brother at rest, as if in the calm eye of a hurricane.  Mighty enough to defeat the forces of evil.  Mighty enough to fight all my battles without my having to lift a finger.  Mighty enough to eliminate ameloblastomas.  Mighty enough to change the toughest heart.

Jesus is Beautiful.  Not GQ magazine beautiful, the Bible says there was nothing about Him physically that would attract anyone to Him.  But beautiful in character.  Beautiful in forgiveness, in compassion, in kindness, in mercy, in grace.  So beautiful that He captured the attention of ordinary fishermen, of Mary Magadeline, of Zaccheus, of blind Bartemaus, of little children, of the Centurion whose servant was dying.  So beautiful that the thought of seeing Him one day, of looking into His eyes and seeing His love for me, thrills my soul with anticipation. 

Jesus is compassionate.  He stopped and saw those others ignored.  He touched lepers.  He heard what others didn’t and stopped.  He heard Bartimaus’s cry, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”, and rewarded his faith by healing his blindness.  Jesus saw the widow of Nain, crying as the pall bearers carried the body of her dead son through the streets and He stopped and gave her back her son.  Jesus sees the situations that keep me up at night, He hears my prayers, and He stops, He answers.

Jesus is divine.  One with the godhead, Jesus enjoyed the intimate, unbroken fellowship of Father and Spirit.  He who made all that was made, who sustains it by His Word, was worshiped by angels.  He sits now at the Father’s right hand, having completed the work He was given to do, and now He intercedes for His own as Mediator and Advocate.  

Jesus is eternal.  He existed before anything that was made was made.  His was the voice that spoke all things into being.  He exists above and beyond time as we know it.  

Jesus is faithful.  Faithful to keep His promises – to never leave or forsake us, to finish the work He’s begun in us, to meet all our needs according to His riches in glory, to cause all things to work for good in our lives, to hear and answer prayer in accordance with His perfect will.

Jesus is gracious.  Lavishly, abundantly, beyond all we could ask or imagine.  We don’t deserve a thing from Him, but He gives to His children anyway because He loves us.

Jesus is holy.  Jesus is beyond me, separate from me in His holiness and perfection.  Jesus is fully righteous, pleasing to the Father in all that He does.  Were it not for His perfect, holy life, He could not have been our substitute in death.  

Jesus is just.  All around I see injustice.  Babies destroyed before they see the light of day.  Children abused.  Crimes committed and criminals go free on a technicality.  Wars begun by those who want what others have.  Poverty that robs young people of a safe childhood and a good education.  Scams that prey on the elderly.  One day Jesus will return and establish His kingdom and His justice shall reign.  

On and on I could go, but you get the idea.

The Bible has a verse that says this: “The joy of the Lord is my strength”.  When I worry, my strength wains.  Troubles are too big for me to carry and impossible for me to resolve.  When I focus on them, I can’t sleep.  My stomach churns, my jaw is sore from clenching it.  But when I focus on Jesus - the joy of knowing Him, the joy of contemplating His person and His character, and all the blessings that are mine because of what He did for me, His joy becomes my strength.  It calms me, increases my faith, and allows my mind and body to rest in the assurance that Jesus is well able to take care of anything the storms of life throw at me.

The storm without and within is quiet now.  I’m going back to bed.