Wait Loss.

The other morning, both boys woke up super early- around 6:00- and they were raring to start their day before my eyes had even been propped open by my morning coffee. (The audacity!)

I sat on my couch in a daze as I do every other morning and turned on some cartoons and made Myer a bottle.

After a short while of lazing about and bumping into things that never move, I noticed a warm glow hovering in my living room. I glanced out the window and saw the most violently shocking slash of hot pink and orange ripping across the sky above my house.

The sunrise.

It was so brilliantly beautiful that it sucked the air right out of my lungs. Before I even had a chance to inhale again, I was rounding up the boys and locating shoes and jackets in the dark and herding us all out the front door. We tumbled out into the cold kindling morning, feeling the burn of the chilled air in our lungs, and headed due east.

There is an empty field on the backside of our neighborhood, and we trekked towards it. We stood at it's edge in the dark and looked up at the gaudy display of love above our heads. It was already very much faded from the moment I saw it through the living room window... like the effort of such a neon burst had worn it thin and quickly burned up its reserves. I breathed deep, thanked God for making the sky, and reassured Ezra that our couch was not far away. (He was saying that his legs didn't feel like walking anymore.)



This sunrise got me thinking about the whole season of Advent that is coming upon us once again. The season of waiting for the coming light. And the thing I kept thinking about was how much of God is tucked away behind the veil of waiting.

We, as a culture today, completely SUCK at waiting. And I, among all who walk the earth today, am THE WORST at it.

Somewhere between the status updates and the twitter burps and the entire internet fitting snugly in out pocketses, we have lost the art of waiting. Lost it all gone. (Wait Loss!) I was realizing, as I thought upon that sunrise later, that I serve a God who refuses to cheapen Himself in such a way... a God who absolutely will not reveal large parts of Himself to me until I learn to know Him as wait worthy. There is no refresh button on Him. No hurrying things along. Only through patient seeking will I truly begin to know Him.

Oh poop, I am SO bad at this.

However, in the times that I have been forced to wait, or the rare instances where I found the discipline to do so, I have always been immeasurably blessed. I think even of LAST advent, when I felt my unborn son stretching against my tight skin. He was worth the wait! Or I think of the time that I took a step of faith and waited for God to rescue me from depression without running straight to the medication that was being held out to me. He met me there! He healed me! I think also of my husband, who would not be playing guitar on the other side of this living room right now if I had not waited for God's promise even when I couldn't see it through the smothering pain.

Oh, He is SO worthy of wait. He can be trusted with that invested time. He will never disappoint. He is Faithful and Good and we will never wait in vain. Never never no never ever. We will NEVER wait in vain.

My prayer for myself during this Advent season is that I would learn to trust Him enough to wait on Him in full expectancy, in full hope, and (yes!) in full joy... knowing that He will meet me there every. single. time.