guest blogger, Kaylei Ward
Kaylei is native Coloradan with a heart for social justice and helping orphans and vulnerable children. She loves traveling, reading, photography, and all things Disney. She’s always excited to say ‘yes’ to new and adventurous opportunities but is learning to relish in the pauses God gives in-between.
There was a time in my life when I lived in Orlando, Florida and loved it– most of the time. I loved the summer weather, the monsoon rain, the nearness of the beach, but when fall rolled around my love for it began to fade. I would start to ache for my hometown in Colorado where the seasons change. My friends around the country would post pictures of auburn red and vibrant orange leaves making me homesick. My heart would long for the crisp air as my weariness of living where there was only one season grew. This seasonal wavering also seemed to mirror my walk with Christ.
Sometimes I feel like a majority of my faith life has been spent in one season; the season of waiting.
I seem to be sitting in a time of waiting to go into full-time missions, waiting to find my calling, waiting to meet my husband, waiting to have kids, waiting for God to tell me what’s next, and just waiting for my life to really begin. When I look around and see people getting what my heart desires, it is again like looking at the coloring trees that I enviously view via social media and I begin to
When I think of waiting, there are a few images that come to mind, but my first image almost exclusively involves a waiting room. God is the great doctor as I sit patiently in the waiting room while He carries on seeing other patients before He can get to me. I see myself sitting in this room trying to be patient, but failing miserably. I grow bored and so I reach for the nearest entertainment source. This entertainment is filled with gossip, lies on how I should look, act, or be. After viewing this, I grow more discouraged, believing I’m not living up to these false expectations. Instead, my distraction has only made me even more desperate to enter the doctor’s office; the room where God holds all the answers.
In my desperation, I begin to look at the people around me. I try to fix the things that ail me by trying the tactics various other patients have used. I begin to believe there are answers I can find on my own and I don’t have to wait anymore. I look for anything that will fix the emptiness I feel and distract me. All the while my illness goes through cycles of temporary illusions of happiness in my effort to self-cure, when really it’s only feeding into my discontent.
Though that image may often be my struggle, I know the truth is that God isn’t in some mysterious medical room. I didn’t pick the wrong number in a registration line leaving me the last to be chosen to receive happiness while those around me are getting their chance to see Him before me. No, this seemingly ceaseless season of waiting that I think I am stuck in is actually one of my own making.
God grants us pauses and bated breathes. He is a God of end results. I stand by waiting to see the pot made and from my perspective, it’s like watching grass grow, but God delights fully in the act of being the potter; tediously taking his precious time to perfect every curvature. Each step He takes with us is purposeful and steadfast.
I am always waiting for what is next, while the Lord is being faithful in the moment.
I may envision my life in a stale waiting room, complete with flickering fluorescent lights and whitewashed walls, but the life I lead is actually one where I stand on a mountainside and look at God’s vast majesty. As I stand there and stare out, I face expectations, the fear of never being anything but ordinary, of being childless, unmarried, unfulfilled, forgotten, and empty. But God wants to show me beyond my fears.
He wants to show me that He is the One of Jehosephat, ready to fight a battle on my behalf, and all I need to say is, “Lord, I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on you.” At that moment, He steps before me and beside me to defeat the enemies that threaten to deceive, kill, and destroy me–the enemies that are not of the flesh, but man-made, deceptions that I’ve allowed into my life through avenues of distraction. They are everything that makes me doubt the plan God had for me before He wove me into being or ever spoke a word. They are the distractions from the truth that my life can be extraordinary because it is for His glory that I am made. They are the lies that cause me to forget He is victorious in my life, always.
The truth is that so often I find myself going back to sitting in the waiting room hoping for God to meet me. With tears in my eyes, I fiddle my hands and stare at the carpet feeling discouraged, forgetting that the one thing I never need to wait on is Him.
God is never anywhere other than beside me, the battle for me is already won. I am beloved. My life has a purpose, and the waiting I feel is intentional, and in it all, my God stands beside me. My God is with me, even in the waiting.
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