Next! (Time to Switch Rooms)

Waiting and I are old friends. All of us have, are, and will be waiting for many things. I have waited to grow up. Waited to understand about Who Jesus is. Waited a really long time to forge an emotional connection with God. But, as almost everyone who's even met me knows, the waiting room that I have inhabited the longest is the Singleness Waiting Room.

I've been in this Singleness Waiting Room for over twenty years.  I've seen most of my fellow waiting room guests get called into the next room. I've celebrated their transition joyfully (not without envy, but with genuine happiness). I've read all the magazines. I know where the bathroom is. I know where to get snacks. I've shed lots of tears there, prayed lots of prayers there, and even had some parties there. I've met God there, grown there, become comfortable with my role there.

All I have ever wanted while in this Singleness Waiting Room is to get out of it. Yet, now that there is the possibility of my name finally (finally!) getting called, well, I've discovered that while I hate waiting, change is also very scary. I know how to wait in this room (not always well, but I understand the process). I've gained a deeper knowledge of God than I could have gotten anywhere else in my life. I know this drill. I know my fellow sojourners. I know my identity and role in this place.

Hebrews 11:8 says this: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going."

Abraham was more or less minding his own business when God told him to take his family and follow the Lord to a new place. An inheritance and a legacy were promised. But Abraham had no idea what it would look like, where it would be, or what would happen. Even after leaving and following it was years before Isaac, the son of the promise, was born. 

I don't know for sure what my future holds. From all I can discern from the exciting things happening in my life, God is calling my name to move into a new waiting room.  However, the room may be different, but the waiting hasn't ceased.  Is He calling me to marriage? I have to wait to know that for sure. When would it happen? Waiting for that too. How do I learn to live a life joined together with another person and God instead of just me and God? Waiting. Just like Abraham, I don't know where I am going.

I will have to get to know this new waiting room. To figure out where the snacks are, who the other visitors are, what the Lord wants to teach me now. I've long said and believed that we are all waiting for something. I'm just now starting to grasp that the waiting never ends. In Romans, Paul talks about how all of creation is waiting for the Lord to come back and to do His redemptive work:

 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:22-25, NIV).

I must trust the Lord that He will be as present and as faithful in the new waiting room as He was in the old, and that the lessons I have learned will not be forgotten. Though I don't know where I am going, He does. I must be willing to move from the familiar to the unknown so that I can see, like Abraham, what new blessings the Lord may have for me.

Baggage and Blessing

Wrestling over whether to even post this, because it's not EXACTLY from something I learned in my quiet time, but it was something I was thinking about while I was praying, so I guess it counts. .. Our current circumstances tend to color how we see the world.  One of the big circumstances in my life right now involves negotiating the tricky world of online dating. I have definitely learned quite a bit on this adventure!

I'm not twenty (in case you were wondering). My matches aren't twenty. Most of the profiles that I look at are of men who have been divorced and have children. One pitfall of this consumer-based approach to dating is that one can start to judge based on bald facts alone, with no knowledge of the nuances and specifics of that person's unique situation. I have been reminded over and over again by the Lord to reserve any judgement until I have met a person, and He has also gently taught me that all of us, every single one, have baggage. It just looks different. But, even that is not my main point.

As I was thinking about my particular baggage, I at first was focusing on all the bad stuff that I have carried with me in  my large suitcase with the tag that says "Forty(ish) and never married". Some of the contents: Insecurity, worry, fear, frustration, impatience, and loneliness. As a Christian, the Lord wants me to lose that suitcase, and sometimes I do. However, even if (when) I am able to get rid of it forever, I will still remember what those things feel like, and I think that is a good thing.

In my musings yesterday, though, I felt like God was urging me to remember that, along with the baggage, come blessings. My relationship with the Lord would not be what it is without the frustrations of singleness driving me to Him. My increased awareness of the people who are on the fringe of the church is due to being in one of those (often) forgotten groups. My confidence in God's provision of my relational needs comes from seeing Him meet those needs over and over without using a husband to do it. More practically, my freedom to travel (which I love) hinges in large part in being single, and me being the only one relying on my income allows me to give to causes close to my heart. I have discovered that I can deal with mechanics and banks and loan officers and taxes. I can be happy in this single state that He has me in right now.

Though I sometimes hate the struggle of leaving behind the bad baggage, I am comforted to realize that, without the baggage, I would not experience the many blessings that come from "Forty and never married."  Romans 8:28 promises that:

  . . .for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

For me, for you, for all of us whom God has called to fulfill His purpose, He can and is and will redeem our baggage and transform it into blessing.