A lesson in the art of waiting.

We are waiting.
I don't like that word much right now.
When all the beautifully well meaning people ask me:
"How are you going? What is happening??"
I want to reply with gusto:
"We are fighting.. we are in treatment.."

Instead, my reply is:
"We are waiting...."
Waiting for a phone call to say the treatment is approved, now let's annihilate those life sucking tumors.
Waiting for the battle to start.
Waiting for the distance between our little family to stretch out between us.

I'm not saying I want what the end of waiting will bring us.
I'm not eager to have my husband get on a plane and fly away from us.
I'm not excited about the second stage of treatment.

But when the waiting is done, the fight resumes.
I know that this week has been tough on Sheldon. He had been busily leaving long 'to do'  lists for his staff at work. He has been meeting with doctors and bankers, making sure that every eventuality has a covered base.
But niggling in the back of his mind is the thought that each moment that we are WAITING is a moment where the cancer is not under all guns drawn attack.

I wrote a song a lifetime ago. It said:
"Waiting for a perfect life
Seems to take so long...
Until my waiting
Anticipating
Becomes my willingness
To draw closer
Closer to the place
Where I wait on You."

So my words have circled back to chomp uncomfortably on my backside.
Yes... We are waiting.
Yes... I would prefer to be fighting rather than waiting.

But I have today.
We have today.
And I get to choose to be frustrated in the wait or satisfied in the knowledge that waiting is not long term.
It's not.
Someday soon we will get that call and he will board that plane. All too soon he will start that new drug. Before we know it we will be knee deep in the battle.

So maybe waiting is the gift in all of this. Maybe it's the time we need.
Time to sit at the beach on a Saturday morning and watch our boys jumping waves.
Time to catch up on episodes of Dr.Who that, strangely, neither of us have seen before.
Time to prepare ourselves for whatever it is that is before us.

Maybe it is the act of waiting that calms the heart and sharpens the mind.

Maybe, instead of waiting FOR something to happen, I should wait ON the One who provides me strength and refuge.

"They that WAIT UPON the Lord will get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles..." (Isaiah 40)

I'm mistaken in my thinking that in waiting I am powerless and nothing is happening.

In those moments of the wait I get a chance to take stock of what has been, what is now and what comes before.

I get to stand still at the crossroads, for that is where waiting always happens- at a crossroads of what was and what will be.

So, if you are waiting for something to happen. If you are at a crossroads of what was and what will be, can I encourage you to join me in welcoming the wait.
Appreciating what the wait is allowing you.
Taking the stillness of the wait and finding a moment of refreshing and renewing.
Let waiting become a willingness to draw closer to the One who renews and refreshes.

And when the wait is over we will fight.