Waiting comes in different forms, and we don't tend to appreciate any of them. When we look ahead to a joyful outcome, the days seem to drag their little feet. However, when the outcome is fraught with possible suffering or sorrow even the minutes seem to stretch into eternity. We can easily fill them with all sorts of imagined outcomes - none of them good. We live a thousand sorrows before even one of them has come to be.
Waiting for the answer to, "What now?" tries our patience. We long to know when we get to stop standing still in place and move toward something we've either dreamed of or stands shrouded in dense fog just beyond our view.
A dear friend gave me a tiny yellow rose bush. I found a spot by the window where it could happily live and set it down on the window sill. I started to turn away, headed back into my busy day, when the wonder of it stopped me in my tracks. The color, the intricate design of petals gently unfurling from its tightly closed center, the sheer beauty of it.
If I take a moment, my head acknowledges what my heart knows well. The One who took the time to create such beauty, who delights in color, fragrance, variety and intricate design in the very least of things, is the One who holds all that I wait for.
“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? 27 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
28 “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, 29 yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 30 And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?"
Matthew 6:25-30
Blessings,
Linda
