Waiting here for You

Tasha's new 'throne'--the more blankets you pile here, the better she likes it. I'm pretty sure I'm getting close to being a crazy cat lady. Oh, well.

Sometimes our prayers for deliverance from some particular strait are accompanied by faith to the extent we can foresee some predictable means of deliverance. But God is not dependent upon means that we can foresee. In fact, it seems from experience that God delights to surprise us by His ways of deliverance to remind us that our trust must be in Him and Him alone. --Jerry Bridges, Trusting God

I hate waiting. Maybe you are good at it. I am, most definitely, not. I hate everything about waiting. I like checklists and to-do lists, projects to complete, things to DO. Waiting is none of those things. Waiting is...well, it's just waiting. And I am definitely, without-a-doubt, no-question-about-it in a period of waiting in my life. It stinks. It really does.

What am I waiting for, you might be wondering? Direction. Answers. Solutions to problems that seem impossible to solve. An answer to the question, "So what do you DO in Vienna?" that isn't, "I cook meals and mop the floor a lot."  Waiting for all of that. Did I mention I hate waiting? :) I would love to teach. I have a teacher's heart and not a student in sight. Today is the first day of school in Clay County, Florida, where I have spent most of my teaching career. I would love nothing more than to be sitting in Middleburg, wide awake because I'm too excited to sleep, just like I've done pretty much every year for the last twenty. I would love to teach here. I can't. It's a visa issue that appears unsolvable. I would love to volunteer in an Austrian school. Unfortunately, I have no contacts and not enough German to just walk in and volunteer myself. (Come to think of it, I don't even know how to say 'volunteer' auf Deutsch.) For the first time in my life overseas, my years of teaching English do not seem to be particularly valuable. That could change, of course. I could make some contact in a school that would let me volunteer. I could learn the German word for 'volunteer.' (Yes, I will look it up when I'm done writing!) So hear me when I say that I don't think this is an unsolvable problem or that my lack of a use for twenty years of teaching experience is a permanent issue. I don't think that. But for this season, I am--for the first time in my adult life--not a teacher of anyone in any capacity. And that's hard. Really, really hard for me.

There are other things too personal to share here that I'm waiting for...answers that don't seem to be in the offing at the moment. Problems that just look like too much for me to see a logical solution to them. (Do you hear the music swelling? Because I'm about to resolve the minor chord, as it were.) But isn't that the tremendous thing about our God? He is not reliant on my logic. (Praise the LORD!) He is not reliant on anything but Himself. And...here's the hard part...He has a plan and a purpose even in the waiting. OUCH! I want things fixed. Yesterday. Quickly. I want answers and solutions and a way to see the sun shining amidst the clouds. But at this moment, for this season, that is not what He has for me or for us. What He has for us is Himself. What He has for us is learning to rely on Him and Him alone. In this season of waiting, when answers seem pretty few and far between, there is sweetness and comfort that His promises are true, that He does not waste anything in our lives, and best of all...that His plan is for our good and His glory. Amen and amen.

So what do I do while I wait? Learn German. Work at relationships. Love my kids and husband through a difficult time. And yes, right now, I make meals and mop the floor a lot. I live my life in the most obedient way I know how, I pray a lot, I read my Bible, I journal, I complete the couple of projects I have in front of me, I volunteer a bit at the kids' school...and I wait. I would like to say that I wait patiently, but I'm contractually obligated not to lie. :) But I do know from experience that on the other side of this season, I will likely be able to see some purpose in this. Maybe not the full plan, because in my experience, I rarely get a big picture glimpse of what God's doing--but maybe a brief glimpse of this tiny corner of the plan. But even if I don't get that--even if this season never makes a bit of sense to me or to us, even if we don't see a single good thing come out of it--I choose to trust Him. I learned a long time ago that His ways were not mine, nor were His thoughts my thoughts. You can rest comfortably in the knowledge that the King of the Universe does not need me to solve things for Him, nor does He consult me about the best way to operate. I trust Him, because I know Him. And I know that He is good beyond measure, that His love for me and mine (and you and yours!) reaches to the heavens, that His faithfulness stretches to the skies. I have, indeed, tasted and seen that the Lord is good. He is trustworthy. In a season when I don't know a lot, I know that for sure and for certain. He is trustworthy.

Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are in a season full of easy answers and sunshiney days, and that you get to spend time with Hannah Jane Hooks today. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye