The Waiting Room

I don't know about you, but I just HATE waiting.

Growing up in era before android phones meant that every minute spent waiting at the bus stop, the fish market or the line for groceries meant less time to do what I wanted to do. Which was always a lot. I don't remember ever feeling bored, not even during long summer vacations at home. I remember often feeling like others are wasting my precious time by making me wait.

Turns out, adulthood had a lot more waiting in store for me. Waiting for feedback on dissertation work, waiting to get one decent job to apply to, waiting to hear back from their HR department while all my batchmates had already got their salaries for many months, waiting to find a new home, etc.

But the most painful of all was waiting to be a mother.

In the 2006 movie 'Facing the Giants', one of the lead characters asks: How is it possible to miss someone so much even though they don't exist yet? I knew exactly what she meant and was going to burst into tears. Only we were watching the movie with family friends and their little boy turned around and said: Hey, that's just like you! And we all exchanged meaningful glances and so much unspoken love.

A few years later, that same little boy stood me between and my husband on many stacks of piled up chairs as we prayed for a miracle and whispered into my ear: It's ok, till your baby comes, you can hug me. Even at such a young age, he knew that waiting was hard and he knew how to wait with us.

Waiting for a baby was really hard. What made it worse was that the process seemed to be very easy for everyone else around us.

But what really really hurt was waiting in the waiting rooms.

                                        picture credit: Zarah

In the radiologist's waiting room, even If I got the 3^rd or 4^th appointment, I was still taken last after all the in-house patients and pregnant women coming in through the OPD. In the Ob-Gyn Doctor's waiting room, we usually got an appointment for 8.30 pm and got to meet the doctor at 1.30 am. Yes, you read that right. Since waiting rooms are supposed to be silent zones, I couldn't even use the time to talk to my husband and I didn't want to go through my reading list at the time in public because they included books on infertility, nutrition, etc. All this was also before android phones reached us. So waiting in these waiting rooms for hours basically meant watching a steady stream of women walk in and walk out before me with the one thing they all had that I wanted so badly but couldn't have.

It was normal practice to wait for many hours for a 15 min appointment but it was also normalized that since I was NOT pregnant, I had to wait the most. Apparently, the emotional torture of infertility is not perceived to be as bad as waiting while a baby kicks your bladder.

Obviously, we prayed harder than we had ever before but our prayers were often more 'when will my will be done?' rather than 'how can thy will be done?' It took us three long years in many waiting rooms to change our focus in prayer and finally begin receiving some answers. But that's a post for another day.

As of today, we know that that the whole world- the actual whole world- is waiting for the end of a pandemic and the many man-made disasters (like unemployment, starvation and human rights violations) that have become worse in this time of waiting.

We are all in the waiting room right now. Sitting tight, twiddling our thumbs for something to do that will lessen the pain while we watch many enter and exit the waiting area. No one knows whose turn is next, there is no appointment system. You may be waiting just a while and called before all the others. Or you may be waiting a long while and watch as many enter the doctors room but never come back out. And as the seasons change outside while we are all still locked down inside, the wait just gets tougher and tougher.

But this time, I know HOW to wait (even though I still hate it) because I have come to accept WHY I'm waiting.

The reason I'm waiting is because I have no control over anything.

OUCH!!!!

Yup, I have no control over Covid-19, who gets it, who dies from it or who survives it. I have no control over my national or local governing body's decisions regarding this pandemic or the economy, how diligently anyone around me follows safety precautions, or even how my own mind or body responds to this ever increasing stressor!

But because I know who is in control, I also know HOW to wait.

1. I'm waiting with God: I'm not alone even when I feel most alone

2. I'm waiting for God: Even though He's right here with me, I'm waiting for His move- His working out of a plan that is completely mystifying to me.

3. I'm waiting on God: my focus is Him, not the stressful circumstances around me or what I want or hope the outcome of all this waiting will be.

A day before the lockdown began, my super busy local grocerywala deliveryman told me in his language: Even if the vaccine doesn't come out, God will find some way or the other. After I recovered from the shock of receiving such wisdom from a young delivery man, I realized that even though He knew God would make a way, He did not know God Himself IS the way.

Wait with God, wait for God, wait on God.

Yes, we don't understand what He's upto, but we know from plenty of past experience that He has made greater good come out of the worst periods of waiting. In the end, you will see for yourself, that He was right about everything all along.

God is in control. Yes, He's even in control of your waiting room.

Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. Psalm 25:5

If you can't see the video, click this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZnRzQ3_udE