Ever prayed for something and then the wait began. You can basically taste the seconds creeping on by you and sometimes you’re positive time stands still. You suddenly start seeing whatever that thing is you’re waiting for ALL AROUND. Like when you’re in the market to buy a new car and suddenly you see the very car you want everywhere you turn. It’s actually a psychological term/phenomenon, but I won’t bore you with definitions.

It’s easy to notice the desire of our heart over all the other things around us.

We all have things we’re waiting for – big and small. I’ve written and talked about this many times with close friends, because waiting is something we can’t escape. It doesn’t have to be something we fear or dread though.

Did you ever think the reason behind the waiting has nothing to do with you. Maybe, just maybe, YOUR wait isn’t a reflection of YOU, but it’s because someone (or something) else needs more time?

My parents couldn’t get pregnant when they first started trying. They went through years of praying, believing, standing firm, doctor appointments, procedures, church services, and countless moments of celebrating everyone else getting pregnant. In that season of their life it was the greatest desire in their heart and seemed like the perfect timing to add the cutest baby girl in the world (so they tell me) to their life.

But, it didn’t happen.

They endured their wait with as much hope and faith as they could muster up and decided to pursue other options believing that the Lord was going to honor their desire and had another route for them to have a family. Ultimately, their desire was to be parents not just pregnant. They became foster parents and took a few year journey that led them to adopting my older brother and raising another little girl for almost 2 years before she was placed with another family (a devastating, shocking and tragical spin of events to them at the time). That’s when they unintentionally ended up preggers with me. Waiting added the sweetest, kindest and gentlest big brother to our family. Their wait also gave me a few more years to chill in utero so I could rock 1986 instead of 1980 on my license. This however did not save me from some great leftover 80’s hair styles.

Sidenote: I just summarized like a 5-6 year L-O-N-G and emotional journey in a few short paragraphs. However, it’s a real rockstar story that they need to share more often. If you ask them, they’ll share their journey with you for sure. The details, although hard, are coated in God’s strength and hope to not give up on the dream in your heart.

Sometimes in the moments that we have to wait for something our heart longs for, the wait isn’t for (or about) us. I’m so glad I was born in 1986 and not 1980. Seriously, God’s timing is perfect. I love the details surrounding me being 27  and wouldn’t want to have been born 5-6 years earlier AT ALL. Even the slightest adjustment in years would have changed my friendships, experiences, and loves I’ve developed. Timing is so important for ALL those involved in our life journey.

Even in my own story there are things in my past my heart  d-e-s-p-e-r-a-t-e-l-y  wanted and never received. There are other things I desperately wanted and I eventually got. There are other things I NEVER even knew I wanted that I now can’t live without.

My humanness wants to believe that if I knew the reason for all the waits in my life it would make it more bearable and even a bit more exciting, but that’s not how the deal on earth works. We don’t get the full picture to accompany the challenge, but we do get to trust the never changing character of our God to see his faithfulness made evident.

The Lord has used waiting as a tool to continuously draw my heart closer to him, so I don’t want to downplay that waiting builds character, perseverance and develops skills and maturity in us and can soften our hearts and take us to new places of intimacy in our walk with God.  Sometimes it’s not till you need him a new way, that you find him there. The Lords been teaching me some new things though about waiting. He’s recently been challenging me to move walls back and let him out the box I always seem to put him back into. Instead of taking the wait for life moments (house, husband, promotion, vacation, money, kids, etc) as being solely reflective of me to instead rest in that some waits are for the benefit of others.

We’re not waiting cause we’ve done something wrong. Sometimes, we’re just waiting.

My parents are two of  the most incredible people I know and the most anointed PARENTS I’ve ever met. Anyone who meets them would attest to this. I’m thankful in some of the hardest and most emotional years of their life they covered their walls in scripture verses to encourage their hearts, they surrounded themselves with people who reminded them their hope was in the Lord and they could trust his character, plan and timing to bring their dream to life, and they chose to stay engaged in life instead of being defeated by the pain and sadness their wait made them encounter on the hard days. Waiting for a family (and me) wasn’t easy, but I’m so glad they did.

I can’t help but believe much of their intentionality as parents is reflective of what was developed in them during their wait.

What are you waiting for today? It could be one thing or a few big things. Any chance that you put God in the same box I tend to and have fallen into the trap that your wait is because you haven’t done everything JUST right yet? I don’t know why it’s my inclination to go back to the focus of me. I’m working on that.

God hears. He moves. And he will weave fulfillment in your heart on a daily basis if you draw near to him during your wait.

Take a deep breath.

Enjoy life around you while you wait.

Be proactive and pursue the things he loves: People

And let go of false perspectives that until you get all your stuff together you’re stuck in waiting limbo. He hasn’t asked us to wait to live life. He sees the entire picture and is perfecting the details to accomplish that which he has set before us.

I’ve got a long way to go to be good at this “waiting” gig, but I can surely testify that who I am today is a much different and better version of myself from the waiting I’ve done.  I don’t always appreciate the waiting and sometimes I’m much more aware of my humanness than his strength, but  I know him differently now. I know him deeper now.