This guest post was written by the lovely and talented Stacey Philpot of Chronically Whole, a blog dedicated to her journey with Lyme disease, faith, family, and friendship.
Waiting. We’re the worst at it, are we not? Surely it’s not just my newsfeed that’s filled with complaints about it.
The line at the grocery store is too long – they should hire more cashiers. The wait at the doctor’s office is much too long – she should stop booking so many patients at once. The prescription wasn’t ready at the appointed time – they should hire more competent employees.
Perhaps, some of your friends are waiting for even larger, more pressing matters to resolve themselves. Will this season of unemployment ever come to an end? Will the scans show the cancer has made its exit once and for all? Will the hundredth pregnancy test be positive?
In the waiting room we sit, all of us. Your waiting room may look differently than mine, yet here we are. Some of us pace in the waiting room. Others calmly read a book. Some of us weep, for there is pain in the waiting.
What will become of us when the waiting ends? Will our suffering, our loneliness come to an end? Of this, we can be sure. One day, the weeping, the waiting will end.
I look forward to this day, when my body no longer thwarts my deepest longings. When pain so deep, tears streak my cheeks in no longer my norm, when the thief of chronic illness can steal no more.
For six years, I have battled illness upon illness. In the beginning, I felt certain it was just a matter of time before this unfortunate season passed and life as usual could once again commence.
Now, I wait patiently, remembering God is God and I am not. Whether my healing comes in this life or the next, it will be miraculous nonetheless. One day this body of mine will meet its Savior face to face and its pain will be no more.
Can I be honest? The waiting is still waiting. It’s long and hard and painful. But I have this hope, that one day the waiting will be over. You have this same hope. That whatever waiting room in which you sit will one day be emptied. One day your distress, your weeping will be no more.
Isaiah 65:18-19 (NIV)
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
Let’s wait in joyful expectation, shall we?
Stacey is an author, goofball and avid reader. You can find her blog at chronicallywhole.com. She is mom to Hayden and Avery, stepmom to Julie and wife to Ryan (a smarty pants who works at NASA and logs their whole life on spreadsheets and pie charts, true story!) She has a strange affinity for eating whole meals in bed (don’t tell anyone) and is convinced smelling old books will make her smarter.
Courtney Ellis 