Freedom from “I Hate to Wait.”

Today I feel giddy with joy.

You know the feeling. You felt it when the man you loved proposed to you. Or when your child was born and the doctor proclaimed, “she’s healthy.” It’s the feeling people get when the doctor says, “benign” or the weary job-seeker hears, “you’re hired.”  

My feeling of giddy joy is here because my waiting is over.

Instead of nine months of waiting that takes place in pregnancy, my waiting has been for almost nine years. 

One reason the waiting has been difficult is because I had a plan of my own that didn’t match God’s.

My plan was: My youngest daughter at the age of 18 will  go off to college, and my husband and I can then enjoy an empty nest.

That plan was shattered by other plans and problems of life. My daughter decided not to go away to college. She became pregnant. The baby was  premature which led to health and then behavior problems. The relationship with the baby’s dad was not a good one. My daughter wanted to finish nursing school. She then decided to get her bachelor’s degree.  

All of this pointed to us having her live in our home until her financial and emotional life became more steady.

I argued with God often. This is not my plan!

This is taking too long was my frequent moan. 

But even though my heart at times did not want to fully embrace it, my daughter living with us until the age of 26-1/2 was God’s plan.

There have been difficulties along the way. (How often I’ve believed the lie that says:  hard times = it can’t be God’s plan.)

It’s not easy living with an adult child, especially one with a child of her own– which in our case sometimes seemed like our child. Mindy and I did not see eye to eye on many issues–spiritual, childcare, cleanliness, how best to relate to Destiny’s daddy, how to treat us as her parents. The list goes on. 

There have been many angry days, sad days, exhausted days. Some days it seemed I couldn’t go on living like this–that I must run away and start a new life somewhere else without leaving a forwarding address.

 But today as I luxuriate in the quiet and the sense of “mission accomplished,” a thought comes to mind. God does not waste our waiting time.

During this time of waiting, God has humbled me, refined me, and transformed me. He has also deepened my relationship with my daughter. And the joy of such a close bond with my granddaughter is indescribable. Today I feel convinced none of this could have happened in any other way.

The verse that keeps going through my mind as I sense a soaring feeling in my soul is Isaiah 40:31

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (KJV) 

God did strengthen me along the way. I drew closer to Him, and my love for Him grew because of the fact that I couldn’t emotionally or physically handle His plan without depending on Him.  

Someone has said there’s something required for a true miracle to happen. That something? An impossible situation. I’ve seen God intervene in the impossible repeatedly over these past 8-1/2 years. Now I know from experience how faithful my God is.

How did I come to that conclusion? Through waiting.

What about you? Is there a seemingly impossible situation involving waiting? Bring it to God. He may not transform the circumstance by ending the waiting. But if you’re willing, He will transform you.