in the waiting

I’ve found myself in a season of waiting these past few weeks. Waiting for summer to end. For my husband to move back home. For parts of my life and work to resume. In the waiting comes discomfort for me. There’s too much quiet. Too much space. Too much choice. I find myself wanting deadlines and someone expecting something of me so I can feel meaningful and productive. I found myself this week really struggling with the restlessness of waiting. With mundane. With slow. With ordinary. I began to wonder what it might have to show me. Leaning into that curiosity I read so much about in my therapy books. But it wasn’t happening for me for much of today. I just moved throughout my day doing the best I could to stay present. And then a post from someone I admire came across my screen that read, “When you rush the process, you rob yourself of the reward.”

The waiting is necessary for our growth. The waiting is hard, but critical. It’s uncomfortable to feel like we’re just waiting, but waiting does not mean we are being complacent. We can and are working in the waiting. The powers that be, the spirit, the universe, God, are working in the waiting through us.

We are still being shaped in every season of mundane and ordinary. The reward may not be as visible or obvious in the in-between, and yet it is still there. Or maybe the reward we seek or the thing we are waiting for won’t be nearly as sweet without the waiting.

Instant gratification does not allow people to maximize their full potential, their full growth.

I shared about this in my class tonight and the resonance was palpable. I knew I wasn’t alone in the frustrating waiting season I’ve been in. An old friend returned and reminded me of my power. And as I left the studio this evening, a rainbow was waiting for me in the sky. I never would have noticed it if I wasn’t looking up and walking slow though. If I was rushing to my car, head down, I would not have witnessed its beauty.

Waiting has a purpose. Slowing down allows us to see the beauty we often miss because of our hustling schedules and fast paced lives.

I’ve got to think that maybe this mundane season is revealing its “why” to me after all. It is showing me how beautiful and necessary waiting seasons are so we can emerge on the other side fully equipped for what’s to come. Waiting enables us to fully appreciate what matters most when the rewards come. It allows us to swell with gratitude over the small and the ordinary. So then when the reward, the something special, comes, we appreciate it even more because we have waited and we have worked.

Every part of our journey has value. And tonight I got the wink from the divine that I needed to remember that my waiting is not complacency. My waiting is not useless. Our seasons of waiting have purpose and the universe is always at work for our good.

If you’re in a season of waiting, you’re not alone. Your rainbow is in the making, too.