I’m in a season of waiting. I’ve been here for a while. And I’m getting impatient.
Actually, I think I’ve passed impatience. Impatience was a spreadsheet with over one hundred job applications. Impatience was attending my twenty-third wedding without a plus one. Impatience was sobbing to my mom over the phone while sitting in my car in the dark because I was just so tired of the word no.
I don’t know the word for where I am now. Some days – a good many, actually – it’s hope. Peace. Contentment. Joy.
These are the days when I live in the knowledge that I am fearfully made and perfectly loved by a God who gave His one and only Son to save my soul from sin and death. They are the days when the sun warms my face and bubble tea fills my belly and a child I love snuggles against my chest.
But there are other days. Days when hope dwindles and peace feels far off and contentment sifts through the cracks of my heart with another engagement post. Days when joy seems like a distant dream, a vague memory from childhood floating just out of reach.
These days feel like discouragement. Loneliness. Grief. Anger. Confusion. Naps that last longer than they should and double digits in my bank account and news headlines that make my stomach curl.
These are the ugly days. Days like David huddling cold and afraid in a cave where every noise could be a man itching to drive a spear through his heart. Days like Moses herding sheep in the desert and trying to forget about the man he murdered. Days like Israelites whining about the taste of manna when they could be feasting in Egypt.
(There may have been lash marks on their backs, but at least they had meat.)
These are the meantime days. The days between already and not yet. His kingdom is here, but not fully.
And so in these meantime days, we weep. We incur debt. We swallow pills. We sit in pews at funerals. We read books written by parents who lost children to gun violence. We scream “Why?” to a God who says He is good but still allows our hearts to break.
When I take time to really sit in the heaviness of the world, I sometimes feel guilty for the tears I’ve shed over things that seem so small in comparison. I may not have a husband, but I’m not running for my life from a government that hates my faith. And admittedly, sometimes it is good to give ourselves a healthy dose of perspective.
But when I open my Bible to that second little book of Peter, the words I see there say to cast my cares upon Him because He cares for me.
There is no caveat to the word ‘cares.’ It does not say “cast your cares on Him, but only the ones that are important enough to be covered on a major news network.”
This means that the God who cares about Ukrainian refugees also cares about the wedding playlist I made that’s called “maybe someday,” the one that makes my heart ache a little every time I listen to it. The God who cares about the world’s big problems cares that I’m frustrated because life is short, and I want so much to make this time matter but spending seven hours a day behind a desk isn’t what I had in mind.
It comforts me to know that God doesn’t tune me out on the days when my soul’s song sounds nothing like gratitude. He comes closer, sits cross-legged on the bed beside me, and holds a bottle up to “collect all our tears,” as Psalm 56:8 tells us. All of them. Not just the ones he deems noble enough.
He doesn’t snatch the bottle away so the tears I cry over Bing Bong’s death in Inside Out don’t muddle the ones I cry over my friends who don’t know Him.
He wants all my cares. All my tears. All my questions.
Where are you, God? Why did you give them a wedding and leave me behind? Why does my “good plan” look like living paycheck to paycheck? Why did you let another school shooting happen?
His answer is not usually the one I want. It is not a neat list of ways that all the brokenness in the world is going to be redeemed. It is not a divine revelation of a five-step path I can take to get to where I want to be. It is not instant healing of all the visible and invisible wounds I carry like a burlap sack filled with stones.
Sometimes the answer I really want is for Him to materialize in the flesh so He can wrap me in pillowy arms and tell me everything will be okay.
This also has yet to happen.
Instead, His answer usually goes something like this:
I love you. I am with you. I am for you. I will never leave you. I know your name. I know your heart. You can trust me.
And recently, this is what His answer sounds like:
Little lamb, look for me. I’m in the meantime, too.
So I’m learning to look. I’m looking for Him in the butterflies that flit around the garden outside the place where I work. In the sunrise that makes my kitchen glow warm and red while I make breakfast. In the face of a little girl beaming up at me as I hand her a library book. In the laughter of a group of women that I can’t believe He was kind enough to give me as friends.
I don’t do this perfectly. I still have cave-dwelling days when I turn up my nose at the miracle of manna. I still pray for the chance to walk down the aisle with my dad, to find a job that lets me spend my days doing what it feels like I was made to do. I still struggle to believe in God’s goodness when the wait lasts longer than I ever thought it would.
But even on those days, the ones where skies are gray and eyes blur with tears and it’s a little harder to see all His gifts, I will cling to the words He wrote for me.
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Streams in the wasteland. Do you hear that? He’s making a way, right here and right now.
He makes a way in those long days that drag into sleepless nights.
He makes a way in diaper changes, insulin shots, kids who don’t call home. In wheelchairs, waiting rooms, empty chairs at kitchen tables. In rising costs, student loans, lonely eyes over paper masks.
He makes a way in broken promises. Broken families. Broken dreams. Broken bones.
Jesus is making a way to make all these things new. Because of Him, every single tear we cry has purpose. Because of Him, nothing is wasted in the wilderness.
Because of Him, even our meantime can be beautiful.
Suggested listening: All My Questions is a beautiful album of lament by Bethany Barnard, someone who has walked through roads of grief and mental illness yet continues to proclaim God’s goodness while being honest about her pain. Her song “Tears On Your Face" paints a poignant image of Jesus weeping with His children.
ABOUT OUR BLOGGER
Kati Lynn Davis grew up in Chester County. After a brief stay on the other side of Pennsylvania to earn a writing degree from the University of Pittsburgh, she returned to the area and got a job working for a local library.
When she isn’t writing, Kati enjoys reading, drawing, watching movies (especially animated ones!), drinking bubble tea, hanging out with her family cat, and going for very slow runs.
Kati is pretty sure she’s an Enneagram 4 but is constantly having an identity crisis over it, so thankfully she’s learning to root her sense of self in Jesus.
Willowdale Worship Night: Kennett Campus
Join us during this Lenten season for a church-wide, family friendly, evening of worship and prayer on Friday, March 24 at 7:00 p.m. at the Kennett Campus. God is at work in our midst in many ways and we want to gather as a church to thank Him, to exalt and adore Him, and to boldly seek more of Him. Willowdale musicians from all campuses will come together to lead us in worship and there will be moments of guided and pastoral prayer throughout. Please come with open arms and expectant hearts that we will see more of God’s goodness in our community. We hope to see you all there!