I learned something about waiting when I came down with a respiratory virus over the last few weeks. (That’s why I’ve been silent in this space for a couple of weeks.)
I didn’t plan to get sick. That’s why illness made me feel behind every single day I couldn’t do more than keep down. It made me stop working toward the goals I had set.
Maybe that was part of my problem. They were my goals. Goals I thought were so evident I didn’t need to check them out so I didn’t.
I waited to get well. Waited, thinking the next day would find me normal. Waited for medicine to work. Just waited.
That’s when I learned a few more lessons about waiting:
Sometimes waiting equals rest.
Sometimes waiting brings healing.
Sometimes waiting makes you stop so you don’t continue down a wrong road.
I guess what I learned more than anything is that if you want the gifts that waiting brings, you just have to wait for them. Wait for the new perspective to rise. Wait for energy to return. Wait for motivation and clear-brained thinking that seems to dwindle during illness.
Could illness be the green pasture promised for a wandering sheep? Could it take half-baked ideas and let them slow cook to retain everything important and reduce everything that has no flavor or taste?
And maybe I’m not talking as much about illness as just being receptive to some pesky interruption that sends you to some unexpected waiting room. A job transition. An empty nest. A move. A loss.
If we begin to look forward to what waiting might bring, would that change our attitude about waiting? Maybe we should think of waiting times as sit-and-rest preparation for something new or recovered or transformed. Maybe waiting should be like letting out a deep breath because no one asks you to do something when you have to wait. They just want you to wait. Quietly. Without making a big deal about it.
I don't think I can do that without help. Can you?
Then, I am willing to wait.