While I'm Waiting: Hoping

I was listening to the radio tonight as I washed and dried the dishes. Husband had to work through the supper hour tonight at the nursing home, so I was alone. Often, for me, doing the dishes alone affords some time for reflection that I might not otherwise take.

Husband and I are going to trim the Christmas tree when he gets home from work, and I was trying to muscle up some excitement for the project. We had all of our children’s programs at the library today, which always leaves me feeling happy and yet slightly bruised on the inside at the same time.

One of the songs that came on while I was drying dishes was a song I’ve heard many times before, but I didn’t even know who it was by: “While I’m Waiting,” by John Waller. The song seemed to fit what I want to be right perfectly:

The word ‘waiting’ is obviously used multiple times in the song, but the word ‘hope’ came up too. Hearing about waiting and hoping in the same breath started me musing on the Spanish word esperar. Esperar translates to the infinitive verb form of the English phrase ‘to hope.’ But, strangely enough, esperar also means ‘to wait.’ In Spanish, to wait and to hope are one in the same.

I was reminded again tonight that this is also true in my dealings with God: to wait on Him is also to hope in Him. I am waiting for something I want, but I can be hopeful because I know that whatever He gives me now and will give me in the future is good.

The other phrase in the song that really got me thinking was: “I’ll be running the race, even while I wait.”

I absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, want this to be true of me. I do not want to sit in front of my computer and write blog lament after blog lament over all the painful things that remind me that I’m not a mother yet but want to be (and who would want to sit and read a whole bunch of laments anyway? The authors of Lamentations get special treatment. Their laments are still read because they ended up in the Bible. I have no such trump card to play.)

So.

That being said, I am going to try to get back to the purpose of this blog: being content with what God has given me while I wait. You will probably continue to hear about our child-longing periodically, but I will not allow that to take over the blog.

On that front, I do have some news to share, however: Though Husband and I are not closing the door on fertility treatments completely, we are starting to take baby steps (no pun intended) into the world of adoption as well.

As a child and a teenager, I had always said I wanted to adopt, but since getting married, I had set the idea aside temporarily because I was intimidated by the substantial cost of adoption. Husband and I independently came to the decision that, despite the cost, now is the time to look into adoption. We’re starting with research, so when you hear about our baby-longing, it will most likely be in the context of our responses to what we have researched.

In any case, with the goal being contentment where we are now, other topics besides adoption that you can expect to be reading about in the coming months are:

• Projects, current and future (gift ideas, food, home improvement, and so forth)
• Experiences in my daily life that inspire thankfulness
• Experiences in my daily life that inspire laughter (you all remember my coworker exchanging Satan for Santa—I’m expecting her to step it up, if only for the purpose of this blog)
• Ways that God is teaching me and speaking to me
• Book reviews (because despite my slip up I am going to read through our personal library and also because I just love to read that much)

I’m looking forward to this month leading up to Christ’s birth, and I hope that you will join me in learning to be content right where each one of us is.