waiting for you is like...

"....waiting for rain in this drought. Useless and disppointing." (A Cinderella Story).

Earlier this evening, I was thinking...and this line just blurted out of my heart into the room. I've had a dream, an ongoing hope, an ever welling desire to know and be known by the one that God has called me to spend my life serving, sharing my past, present and future with...my companion...my co-laborer in the faith... my husband.

1 Corinthians 13 says..."Love is Patient." The following verses further emphasize this point...the very next phrase in this passage says, "Love is Kind." What is interesting is that even Kindness is defined as patience or forbearance which means to hold oneself back, to not react or retalliate. I've been moved by the revelation that God, Who is LOVE, is Patient and slow to wrath. His kindness leads us to repentance...it's His PATIENCE that causes us to turn to Him in our weakness, in the depths of our despair and the darkest, most wretched hole of sin...it's His Patience, not His anger that causes us to RUN into His arms. So what does our love look like? Shouldn't it reflect that same patience...

"I don't know if you're near or far away, but I know that I'm thinking of you today...." this song by LaRue slipped from my lips this evening... In my high school years, I would listen to it as I went to sleep, praying for my husband. Now, a decade later...I still pray, but it is with a sense of restlessness...a weariness...a longing that has matured. I no longer wait for a Prince Charming, a Knight in Shining Armor...but for a Strong Man with a Pure Heart...someone to who will be what I need...someone who will carry me when I'm weak, someone who is not perfect but who lives with the intention to honor Jesus with every fiber of his being...someone who loves the idea of waking up next to me until we're both wrinkly and not so "pretty"...someone who holds the other piece to the BIG picture that God has put on my heart...someone who will laugh at life with me!

I pray with the awareness that comes from having loved...and having had my heart broken...and that brokenness is part of life... I pray with the awareness that to chase and pursue someone because I think he is what I want is useless and disappointing,very humbling and painful....more so than waiting. I pray with an awareness that God is shaping and forming my husband more and more into the likeness of Christ (the great Husband)...and that I am becoming more and more ready to be a bride... each day teaches me more about what it means to honor someone in spite of disagreement... to serve someone when they "don't deserve it"...to trust someone else's leadership...

This desert dance is one of faith...for we are called to live by faith, not by sight...it is one of expectancy, for surely faith gives way to sight. In the meantime, my LOVE grows... as I learn the art of patience. There are some days that my faith fails me...like a blind man, being led through a busy street... I stumble...I fret...I fight...I sit down and pout.

There are days that I want to just take life into my own hands...to make things appear... But in the waiting and stillness...in patience, I am made stronger... my hope grows and becomes experience...Jesus becomes more and more to me ...and I am reminded of what one wise friend said to me..."No man's love will ever fulfill you until you come to rest and experience the true, uncondional love of Jesus."


So though, I wish you would hurry along...quit taking so long...I pray that you would be rooted and grounded in Christ, that your identity would go down deep into His love... I pray that the Holy Spirit would open the eyes of your understanding...that your ears and sight would be restored...I pray that you would know...that you would know...the direction of the Father. Be Strong in the Power of His might! I love you...and I will wait...in this desert...in this place of solitude...until you are ready.