The Grace to Wait

No doubt one of your least favorite things to do is wait in line. We get up and get to the doctor's on time or even a little early only to sit in the waiting room ... waiting ... forever. We go to the grocery store for just a couple items and get stuck in an endless checkout line. Not to even mention the DMV or the drive-through at the bank or McDonald's. No one in our culture likes to wait, least of all me.

When we take something to the Lord in prayer, all too often we bring along our all too human impatience at the same time. We often make a request and expect to get an answer immediately. If God doesn't spring into action right then and there, we often begin to think. Well, I tried prayer, but the Lord didn't do anything. Prayer never seems to work for me.

That's sad! Compare that attitude to that of King David. When David was only 16 years old, God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint him as king. And yet, another 16 years would pass before that promise was fulfilled. What did David do during all that time? Did he whine and cry, shaking his fist at God, demanding his kingship NOW? No, not at all. David understood that the Lord was trustworthy. He also realized that his heavenly Father was not only the God of who and what, but also of when and how. David desired the kingship only when God was ready for him to have it. So he waited.

Are we waiting on something today? Will we wait on the Lord as one waiting on a teller at the bank, or will we, like Kind David, trust in God's timing, as well as His provision?

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Sorry about yesterday's blog. It just didn't work out. Well, tomorrow is my last blog. I'm going to take two weeks off before coming back with all new material. So there won't be a blog to read for a couple weeks. My plans are to come back on February 18th. Of course the last time I said I was going to take time off I didn't. But this time I fully plan on a two-week vacation (but you might want to check a couple of times just in case I start back up early). But I don't think I will.

I was up bright and early this morning, 5:55 to be exact, so I've already gotten several things done. That's nice. After yesterday's fiasco, that's really nice. The weather people had so hyped low snow that I thought I'd probably wake up to a white world yesterday morning but it didn't happen. I guess I'll have to be satisfied with the snow we had Tuesday morning, which didn't stick to the ground or anything but sure was pretty coming down. Looks like it's overcast again outside right now. They are predicting more rain for today and they may be right. The weather forecasters are all so inaccurate I never know whether or not to believe them. But we've had 5.27 inches of rain in the past 8 days so we're starting to look good, waterwise.

As soon as I'm sure the rain has passed (at least for a little while) I want to get out and clean my car. Inside and out. I want to vacuum out the trunk and the floorboards while I'm at it. I don't let things build up inside my car the way some people do. There's no trash inside or any misc. items left in the back seat or anything so it won't take much to put my car back in shape. It really needs to be washed though as the birds in the tree under which I park have done a job on it. You'd think with all the rain we've been having, it would wash all that stuff off, but it doesn't happen, at least not to me.

We're going to have Leo over for dinner again on the 16th. He's been wanting to come for a long time now (actually I guess it's since the last time he was over for dinner). He sort of invited himself and I've been putting him off. But Sunday, I knew I had to give him a date so we decided on the 16th. For those of you who don't know. Leo is a 55-year-old black man who attends our church and works at the local grocery store as a janitor. Leo is what some people call "simple" or "slow." His retardation isn't really much of a problem other than the fact that he can't read and he mimics back to you just about everything you tell him. But he's got a heart of gold and he loves the Lord. He lives in a residential care home about a 1/2 mile from our house. Walking distance but I'll go pick him up and take him back home after dinner.

Well, I know this is kind of short but I have several things I need to do. I just heard Michael cough so he's probably awake now too. I get my hair cut a week from today, Yippee!!! I hate my hair. It refuses to do anything for me and we spend 90% of the time fighting. I try to keep it really short because it's a lot easier to care for when it's REALLY short. I wish I could get the nerve to get it all cut off. I saw a woman in the post office last week who had her hair exactly how I'd like mine done. It couldn't have been much over an inch long all over her head and it was curly and just as cute as a button. But the way my hair is it'd probably just stick straight out all over. And then, of course, my hearing aids would show even more than they do now and they may as well be day-glo green the way they stand out now. So I guess I'll stick with the way I've been getting it cut. At least it's short for a couple weeks. I'd like to be able to just finger style it and let it dry but it really needs curl for that and my hairdresser will not perm my hair because it's so fine and delicate. She just flat out refuses to perm my hair and I have to trust her judgment.

No plans for today except to put gas in the car and return the baptismal robes and towels to church. I finally got around to doing them yesterday. I had totally forgotten I've had them in the trunk of my car since Sunday. I had 4 HUGE, dripping wet robes and probably 8 towels to launder. I didn't want to over work my dryer so I took them down to the Laundromat yesterday and ran them through. It wasn't that expensive and it got them all taken care of in about an hour. It would have taken at least 4 times that long if I'd tried to do them here at home. It took me all afternoon to do the last ones and I only had 2 robes that time. The thing is that they are so big and made of such heavy material that they are simply too heavy for my machines. I just put them in the heavy-duty machines at the Laundromat and got them taken care of. And from here on out, that's what I'm going to do as soon as church is over. I'll go by the Laundromat before I even come home. This time it didn't hurt to forget about them because the weather stayed so cold. But if I'd forgotten about them in July, we'd have had molded clothes. They would have been ruined! So from here on out I'll just get them taken care of the day of the baptisms.

I guess this is going to be it for today. Tomorrow I will blog and then it's 2 weeks off for me. I've been blogging every morning for so long now it's going to feel really weird to not do that. But I thought I could take a couple weeks off and then come back with all new material. Basically the new material is just my search for answers and I'll be talking about what I've learned in my study. I'm starting out with the subject of Death and Dying; Heaven and Hell. Nice cheery topic, huh? But I promise it won't be depressing. I'll just be taking you along on my personal journey and we'll see how that works out. If it doesn't (work out, that is) I can always go back to writing my blogs the way I have for the last 7 months: a topic per day. I may find that my search just isn't cut out to be chopped up in daily segments. I'm really just flying by the seat of my pants since I have no idea what will work and what won't. Okay, this is it. Have yourself a wonderful day and I'll see you right back here tomorrow morning, Lord willing and the creek don't rise ... P.S. I can't get my spell checker to work so you'll have to read around any misspellings.