Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness. Isaiah 35:10 b

Waiting

            Waiting. I'm still not good at it, though I have gotten better, more patient, over the years. Maybe waiting for babies to be born seven times helped? Maybe all those waiting room visits at the pediatrician's office helped, too. There are times to take action, of course, instead of wait, but sometimes waiting is the only thing we can do. And sometimes waiting is the best thing we can do.

            What does the right kind of waiting look like? This summer, when my husband and I learned that Monarchs and many other species of butterfly feed on milkweed, he mowed around the stands of milkweed blooming in our pasture. To passersby, it may have looked like his mower blade needed sharpening. To us, it looked like butterfly farming.

            Now that autumn is officially here, he's waiting for the milkweed pods to mature and break open, scattering their seed before he mows that area one last time this season. As a result, the grass has grown tall and gone to seed. Interspersed with milkweed, the area probably looks neglected and overgrown to anyone driving by. They may think we don't care how it looks, though the way it looks is a result of an intention that's invisible to them. For the love of butterflies, our east pasture looks like a mess.

            God's intentions are often invisible to us, too. So often, because he is God and we are not, we can't see his bigger picture. Sometimes, when we pray, we don't see anything we recognize as an answer. But that doesn't mean God hasn't answered, or won't answer. We are called to rejoice, pray, and give thanks, whether we see God's answers or intentions, or not.

Rejoice always,  pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (I Thessalonians 5: 16 - 18).

            A granddaughter, Isabella Dawn, was added to our family in September. We were thrilled to welcome this sweet little one to our large and growing clan. She was born on a day that already held meaning for us. It was the anniversary of my father being born into heaven twenty-four years before. When I remembered that Isabella's older sister, Trinity, had been born on the date of my mother's passing into heaven, I got goose bumps--God bumps, some people call them.

            Does God love us, or what?! The God who is outside of time, "[t]he high and lofty one who lives in eternity" wrote joy over the sorrow we, who are currently bound by days and years, had previously associated with those dates (Isaiah 57: 1a). He wrote joy, not over just one of those dates for us, but over both of them, in the form of sisters born four years apart. God couldn't have been more intentional. That God would be mindful of us in this way leaves me in awe of his great love and attention to detail. Only a great God could be mindful of small details like this. And not just for our family, but for everyone!

But the Lord’s plans stand firm forever; his intentions can never be shaken (Psalm 33:11).

O Lord my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them (Psalm 40:5).

            We didn't know God planned to bless us, but he did. We didn't know we had been waiting. Or what we had been waiting for. I can't begin to imagine how many ways God plans to write joy over our sorrows in the future, but I'm willing to wait until he chooses to reveal them. I'm willing to wait in what often seems like a mess right now. I'm willing to wait until the seedpods he's developing in us mature. I'm willing to wait, if not as patiently as I might, at least expectantly. How about you?

Daye Phillippo

October 2017