Wait! (A Five Minute Post)

Lisa-Jo challenged me to write about waiting in just five minutes!

I remember the waiting game in high school when the thin letters in thin envelopes wound their way through the postal system into my mailbox. It was late in March and the ground was muddy, daffodils poking their fragile heads and gasping for some spring air. I wanted, so badly, to see that thick pile of acceptance, embossed with the Yale College logo, or the Harvard one, or the Princeton one.

I remember the waiting was the best and worst part, because when the answer came into my teary eyed "no, Mom, I didn't get in" the waiting ended in hurt. And I wanted it back - I wanted back in limbo and back in confusion and back in a place where "yes" was still possible.

But I also remember waiting after the "no." So what now, I asked myself as I stomped through gravel walkways at Waring, into the theater for "The Kitchen" rehearsals, into the Barn for Humanities class, into the House for tea with the headmaster. What now, God? We wait on that question so often that I think we must believe that a magic answer is going to fall from the sky and hit us on the head and burst forth into our lives with all the satisfaction of a well-timed cup of tea.

(Photo Credit: Ryan Groff, Italy Trip 2011)

And in so many ways I wait still on the "what now" on the "so, where am I going?" ever since He so gently but so firmly locked the door on my Ivy covered undergraduate dreams. And I'm waiting. But the waiting now is covered with the beautiful friends He's given me, the mentors, the classes, the moments of pure joy laughing in the Atomic with Lisa and getting coffee at the Starbucks on my morning commute with Virginia.

I wait on the next miraculous surprising closing of the door because waiting holds the promise of good, and the promise of gratitude, and the promise, however small and faint and beautiful, that God intends to do wonders.

Love,

Hilary