Waiting.......

Waiting!....I'm not really good at waiting...when I was a kid, I was the one that snuck into my mom's bedroom in the weeks before Christmas to check all the shopping bags to see ahead of time what would be under the tree...heck, I even unwrapped gifts,...ever so carefully......and wrapped them back up again....the curiosity was force driven!

Now, in all the years that I've been a parent....actually 35 years this Friday...(eldest daughter's birthday),...I've sat through a lot of waiting...usually with a good book on my lap......actually, one doctor apologized for taking so long and I assured him that it was okay since it was the biggest block of time that I had had to read in a long time! As a parent, you do a lot of waiting...some for the concrete everyday things like doctors/dentists/waiting for them to finish work at midnight so that you can finally come home and fall into bed because you have to get up in six hours to go to work..waiting.....

...and then there's the other kind.....waiting for them to sit up, to crawl, to walk, to eat on their own, to talk......I waited for seven years for my very first grandbaby to call me 'nana'....did my heart soar when he did!........(anybody that knows my sweet grandson Jairus knows what I'm talking about)......and yet,...there is another kind...waiting to hear very special words that actually mean something (and not because they want something)...the I love you's, the 'thanks for being there for me', the 'I'm not going to do that stuff anymore'.....(I'm still waiting on a couple of kids on that score!)........waiting for a few of them to stop wandering in the wilderness and come back to what they were taught, from little babies and toddlers...all their life.....waiting...the biggest wait I think, really...the most difficult for a mothers' heart......

....I was watching my dad yesterday...he's very depressed, he's very fragile...he's tired....tired of going to dialysis three times a week, tired of the unpleasant (putting it mildly ) side effects of his ulcerated colitis, tired and sad of watching his wife of over 65 years slowly succumb to dementia.....it breaks your heart when you watch my mom, remembering how she used to be...seeing how she's become......I thought last night...I wonder if this winter this will be the one...the one where we say good bye to one of them....it always seems to happen in winter....I know...gettin' maudlin' here aren't I........but deep in your heart, you know you're waiting....

there are good things to wait for too.......new grandbaby due in November...something to look forward to, waiting to hang your hat on as you wait for that big phone call saying 'come, come now,...it's time!'........

....different waitings in your life...nothing in caparison to the amount of waiting the Lord has done for us...waiting for us to turn to Him, waiting for us to acknowledge Him,..waiting for us to love Him......just patiently waiting.....