We Wait
There is good waiting, and there is bad waiting.
Eden is four years old. Her birthday is in July. When each month turns over, she reminds us how much closer we are to her birthday. Her plans continually change. Sometimes it will be a unicorn party, then a pool party, or maybe a Bluey party. She’s so excited that she just can’t decide. Oooooh, it’s spring now… which means it’s almost summer, and summer is my birthday.
Waiting for a good thing is anticipation. We say we can’t wait for it.
I think of pregnancy. There is a 9-month gestation period, which we call expecting. The anticipation builds as a nursery is lovingly created, showers are thrown, items are purchased and placed. Preparation builds promise.
But then there’s bad waiting.
There are minor irritations, like the long grocery check-out line or sitting in traffic when you’re late. We’ve become familiar with worldwide delays due to production chain difficulties; cargo ships loaded up, floating aimlessly in the sea, unable to arrive at their destination.
When I was a child and disobeyed big time, my mom would send me to my room to wait for my father to get home. It was the worst kind of waiting… sweating it, marking time with the expectation that the hammer would drop. Until I heard his car pull in at the end of the day, I waited.
My friend’s daughter has left for college and is making a series of choices that grieve her parents. Will she wise up? Will the prodigal child return? They wait.
Another friend is in-between jobs. The old one is finishing up, and the answer hasn’t yet been provided for their next step. Will they have enough money? How long will the gap be? Will the right thing turn up for them—and in time? They wait.
My cousin lives in Oregon. She has two young children and a rare cancer that was Stage 4 metastatic when they found it a couple of years ago. Soon, she goes to San Diego for exploratory surgery to determine the next steps. Huge questions loom. In the meantime, she waits.
I suppose this kind of waiting can be best summed up as fearful suspense. Sort of like finding yourself in a scary movie, wondering how the end will turn out.
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Ty and I leave next week for Houston. We have scans and follow-up appointments with doctors and surgeons. These are regularly scheduled visits; I will be going every 12 weeks for more scans.
When I was leaving MD Anderson in December, I asked my Oncologist how often I would need to return to be scanned. She told me that typically when people are NED (No Evidence of Disease), they don’t get scanned unless a symptom points to a potential problem, like bone pain in their leg or a chronic nose-bleed. Something needs to be concerning to warrant a scan.
But with your history, I’m sure insurance will approve scans every 12 weeks, she said.
I can’t decide if this is assuring or not.
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Back in January, when I was freshly home from my 3-month stay in Houston, I was just happy to be in my own house with my family again. I didn’t think about scans in early April. But as the weeks and then months pass by, and I see that trip looming ahead of me, my anxiety grows.
I had a sharp pain in my left rib area about a month ago, and I called my doctor, convinced I had bone cancer. I cried off and on all night long. I lay awake, panicked. I tossed and turned, certain this was the beginning of the end.
He texted me the next day: What you’re describing doesn’t sound like bone cancer.
Oh. I breathed easier. The pain had come and gone—it was nothing. Stop overreacting, I told myself.
Spring allergy season here in East Tennessee is legendary. We have a thick blanket of yellow pollen covering all of our patio furniture. People are affected in all kinds of ways. I’ve had a nagging cough for three weeks now, so I took a Covid test. Please Jesus, let it be Covid, I prayed.
I’m pretty sure it’s just allergies, but in my fearful little mind right now, it’s either Covid or cancer. There’s nothing in between.
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I think waiting can be its own mini suffering. Life is a series of opportunities to wait. We are constantly looking to the horizon, wondering how things will turn out. Questioning, worrying, fretting.
I just started reading 1 Peter. In this letter, Peter writes to a fearful people: scattered, hunted, persecuted. These families were being torn apart, uprooted, and killed. The suffering was very present, very real. What does the next day hold? Will we live, or will we die?
Peter starts his letter with this:
Grace and peace be yours in abundance. (1:2)
And then, five chapters later, he signs off with:
Peace to all of you who are in Christ. (5:14b)
The letter is bookended with peace. Peace before the suffering, peace after the suffering, and peace amid the suffering.
Synonyms for peace are quiet, rest, stillness, contentment, trust. So, in the middle of the waiting, the anxious thoughts, the restlessness… I’m reminded that I can find rest. Despite my circumstances, peace is not outside my grasp.
The thing is, we will always find something to fret over. Jesus himself says, Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
I like that he acknowledges that our days are filled with trouble. This is reality, not sugar-coated, willful ignorance. Circumstances can, and often do, quite frankly, stink. But if I wait for circumstantial change to bring inner peace, I’ll be waiting forever.
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I ordered a slew of new light fixtures for my house in early January. I didn’t realize it would take months for them to ship when I placed the order. But over the weeks, as each one arrived, month by month, I’d shriek, Eeeeek! I’m so excited—I’ve been waiting for this!
I sit here typing now by the light of my new sconces that I just adore, and my joy is complete. I hear the electrician over in my dining room installing the last lights. My cup overflows—it was worth the wait.
If—and when!—we get news of clear scans next week in Houston, you better believe we’ll be celebrating. Anxious tears turn to tears of joy. Mourning turns to dancing because somehow, our joy is more complete when we’ve done the hard work of being still, trusting, waiting. The other side is that much sweeter.
And if the terrible fears come true, if we don’t hear the news we want, then I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it. But today has enough trouble of its own, so I’m choosing to set down my worry and trade it out for peace in abundance.
I hope you will, too.
