The Waiting Game

I’ve been thinking a lot over the last several days about waiting.  We’ve all had to wait, there’s no doubt about that.  Especially this time of year we find ourselves waiting in long lines at the grocery stores, Walmart and the department stores.  Everyone is out trying to get last minute gifts for loved ones or food for the big family meal.  The waiting I’ve been thinking about over the last week hasn’t been this type of waiting, but the type of waiting that Mary, the mother of Jesus, did. 

Mary was carrying the Savior of the world.  I think of the times that I came close to my due date with my babies, and how I was waiting  with anticipation to see what they would look like, what sex they would be and if they would be as perfect as in my mind I knew they were. (I was never disappointed).   Would they have dark hair, blond hair, or hair at all?   I can imagine that Mary had this same type of anticipation but even more so because there had been nothing “normal” about how her pregnancy happened and she wasn’t just carrying any baby, she was carrying the Prince of Peace.  Talk about pressure. I’m sure though, like any expectant mother she too was waiting to see what he would look like.  Would he look like a Savior?  What does a Savior even look like?  I bet she couldn’t wait.  I’m sure as she was traveling to Bethlehem on that long journey, that she really wanted the waiting to be over.  (It was probably not the most comfortable traveling experience for a gal that was 9 months pregnant). 

Today as I opened my advent devotions the title was “Wait for the Lord.”  I found it interesting as I had already chosen the theme of today’s blog last night.  It seems that waiting during this season is on everyone’s mind.  Maybe for you, like Mary, this season is a time of waiting in anticipation for the celebration of the birth of the Christ-child.  Excellent! But for many, this season becomes a different type of waiting; a stressful waiting.  Will our family gathering to celebrate Christ’s birth be a day of tension and unkind words flying about out of our mouths?  We wait to see just how that will pan out.  Will the packages that we ordered arrive on time?  We wait and we wait.  Will our family members traveling from far away make it here safely?  We wait. 

Though stressful, waiting is not a bad thing. In fact it’s Biblical.  Fr. Robert Barron reminds us to wait, but with the active expectation that God will move. The Psalmist had it right: "Wait for the Lord, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the Lord!" (Ps 27:14).  Is the Lord making you wait for some reason during this season?  Mary had no choice but to wait and she knew that in that waiting God would move; and he did.  In your waiting, whether it is at the grocery store over trivial things, or in the situations of your life be expectant that God will show up.  If you are looking for Him, he will.