The Holding Pattern

Last week, I wrote about contentment. This week, I want to talk about waiting.

All summer, it has seemed I have been in this season of waiting. There is a fabulous job opportunity that may or may not come to fruition and I am waiting. It seems like I will always be waiting.

If you’re like me, your brain just doesn’t shut off. I have played out so many scenarios in my mind. How will I react if I get it? How will I react if I do not? Will I cry? What will I do if it is full time? Will that effect my freelance work? What if I don’t get the job and will never make enough to get out of my parents basement? Does that mean I have to take up video games? What if they thought my outfit was awful in the interview? Did the color of my resume paper offend the interviewer? What if? How will I?Hmm? Hmm? Hmm?

The other day I received a call from a number I didn’t recognize and nearly had a heart attack. Could this be the call at last?

… It was just a wrong number.

I wondered if the guy on the other end had been calling ‘Teresa’ to tell her she got a job. Congrats Teresa! I hate you.

Okay, not really.

But it’s frustrating. It’s disappointing. It sometimes feels like I’m going crazy! And I don’t mean the phone call.

I am in a holding pattern in which I have no control. So where do I go with that?

God is so much more patient than I. And he actually is in control.

When the buzzing monologue of what-ifs overwhelm my thoughts, I have found taking time to pray has been essential in this season. I am not going to get an answer in that time with Him. I am not really looking for an answer. That will come when the hiring folks make their decision in their time.

When we want something so badly, it is easy to get swept away with worries and what-ifs and miss what God may be up to. That’s usually what I do with my waiting periods. I worry. Until I figure out what’s going on. Then I’m usually disappointed when things don’t go my way or unfulfilled if they do.

The waiting is just as valuable as the thing you are waiting for.

I don’t care if it is for a job, a spouse, enough savings for a new car, dinner, cats to go extinct: the waiting is where God does some of his best work. It is a playground to experience gratitude, examine motives, and encounter the character of the Father.

And, yeah, sometimes it sucks! This summer has crawled by for me. I have a hard time scheduling things over a week in advance because I’m not really sure what life will look like in that short amount of time. I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket like phantom limb, having to remind myself it’s in my purse. I want this so badly, but I am not getting it right now and I have to learn to be alright with that.

I’ll tell you this though: God has met me in this holding pattern. He is sitting beside me while I wait to land. The moments when he invites me to into silence, to ‘Be still and know that he is God’ are what keep me sane. He offers peace. I find that I just have to trust that his way is best. Waiting and all.

I hope that if you are finding yourself in a holding pattern as well, that you find God beside you. Take some time today to enjoy the silence with him. Please enjoy as you loosen your grasp on the thing you are waiting for and offer it to Him with open hands.

The waiting is just as valuable as the thing you are waiting for.

I promise.