Recently I sat in front of a large window with a toddler in my lap, watching the world go by. She would point excitedly and exclaim “beep beep!” every time a car passed by or “tweet tweet!” for every bird. But there were inevitable stretches where there were no beep beeps or tweet tweets in sight, and she’d ask me plaintively “beep beep?” I told her that I couldn’t magically summon any cars or birds for her, that we would just have to be patient, watching and waiting and one would come eventually. My words echoed back to me, and I realized that I needed to hear this too. It is such a simple message— that we can’t control what comes our way, but we can choose our posture as we watch and wait. Sometimes, all we can do is watch and wait and notice all the little changes as we do: the light rain dripping on the burning bush, the curious little toes creeping up the window sill, the bright flash of a tiny grin when she sees her dad in the yard. It doesn’t solve anything, exactly. Waiting like this doesn’t make a car come by any sooner, and it doesn’t change the behavior patterns of the neighborhood creatures. But it does change us a little bit.
I’m not in a season of waiting, exactly, but a season of deep grief can feel like this too. I don’t know when this wave of grief will ease a little bit, or when the next one will come. I don’t know what complex blend of emotions I will feel at any given time or how long they will stick along. It can become easy to put such weight, such a sense of expectation on the next shift, pushing towards it, trying to will it into happening. But the problem is, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t make the change come sooner, and sometimes, at least for me, it can make it harder and more engrained. I often need a consistent and gentle reminder to wait, watch, and notice, because I can’t force my circumstances or my feeling to change anyway.
It is a simple and powerful shift. I can be sitting in front of the same window, in the exact same set of circumstances, either looking with impatience for what is coming next, or noticing what is actually right in front of me me right now. This is especially difficult when life is hard. How can we look for God in the midst of our circumstances without blessing everything we are experiencing as good? What does it look like to allow the tension of waiting to exist? How do we give space to the discomfort and trust that it will pass when it needs to?
I want to be gentle here, too. This isn’t just another task that we must focus on mastering and feel bad about when we inevitably fall short of zen-like equanimity. It is easy enough for this very practice to become yet another way that we try to manipulate our emotions into changing. I try instead to receive it like I did in that moment at the window— a gentle echo of my own voice that resonated, maybe paired with a nudge from the Holy Spirit that rang true within me. It’s that little moment of “Oh yeah, I can’t control this and I don’t need to try.” It is that slow, deep exhale. It is the weight of a little kid nestled in my lap, trusting me that the cars will come eventually, and the birds will fly by in their own sweet time.
Wellspring 