Waiting As Worship
Our court date had been set since June. We thought December 6th would never come. When originally set, we just decided to take things one day at a time & attempt not to focus on a date that seemed too far away. As the months chipped away & the ticker turned to weeks, the anticipation set in. Not really excited. Not really scared. Just anxious, I think. Or maybe just the collective jumbled mess of emotions that seem easier to label as anxiousness. We were down to days, then just one day. 24 hours. All of a sudden, a new countdown begins with a short text from our DFCS caseworker:
Court has been reset. We don’t know the date yet, but it will be sometime next year.
All of the feelings from before rage greatly, but take a quick turn towards confusion & anger & frustration. While I’m feeling these things partly because of my selfish desire to know the full picture of what our family will look like, I also can’t help but to feel them on behalf of L and all of the other children currently in our foster care system. L is only 20 months old, but that does not make her immune to trauma that happens when you are in foster care. The longer she remains in care, the more questions she’ll have when she is grown that won’t have neatly packaged, bow-tied answers. And what about her biological mom? She’s experiencing a painful wait too. So much waiting.
After the text came through, I vented vehemently about all of these things I couldn’t control. Then, a message popped up on my phone from a group messaging app that a friend & I started for advent devotion this season with anyone who was interested. Nothing crazy, just a short thought or song or scripture for each day to point us back to Jesus & remind us of what we are truly waiting on. I started reading back through the things we had sent out so far. I was wrecked by the words my friend & I had written, even though I had read & re-read them several times before. God gently pressed me that these words were for me, too. I believed them for everyone else, but had yet to acknowledge them for my life & my specific wait. I can’t imagine what the purpose is, & I’ll likely never know. However, I’m confident that God is seeing the full mosaic & perfecting every piece even if they look messy & complicated from my viewpoint.
As I sat & fought back tears, I’m reminded that this waiting is not in vain. It is not wasted. Our waiting is purposeful & beneficial. In fact, all throughout Scripture we see people waiting & using the wait as worship. Noah waited on the flood. Abraham & Sarah waited on a baby. Esther waited to tell King Artaxerxes. Job waited for his life to not be terrible. David waited to be king. God’s people had waited for centuries before the Messiah came. Generations after generations waited their entire lives for a King – the King. And all the more they waited. It turned out that God was actively working in the what seemed like silence all along. The entire Old Testament points to the coming of Christ. Every story, every tear, every uncertainty was all a part of the Bigger Story. So, while we wait for a new court date, I can rest in knowing that God has not forgotten us. He has not abandoned us. He has not diverted from the plan. There is a purpose for this season we are in & if we can tune into what that is, we’ll likely better understand who our God is. And once we understand more clearly who God is, we can see that waiting is not a punishment, rather a gift. It’s God’s calling on our life – to wait for Him. Tell your people, the ones that know all of your junk & still fight you anyways, that you need to be redirected back to Jesus during this season. Give them permission to do so. Allow them into the scary space that has lots of questions & less answers. It’s there where we recognize that Jesus gladly carries us through.
We are all waiting on something. A parent. A breakthrough. A diagnosis. A job. A child. A decision. Let us worship while ushering in this waiting season with joyful anticipation for the birth of Christ with open hands & hopeful hearts. May we wait well.
-C