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For God alone my soul waits…
I guess you could say I’ve lived my life in waiting.
I had a blessed childhood. God was not foreign to our home and our crazy imaginations helped paint our days with more adventure than we deserved. My teenage years were tough; on top of the normal difficulty of adolescence my father was sick with addiction and mental illness. I learned to put adventure behind me and began to bar myself inside the walls of reality. It was my tower, my place of refuge, my safety net. My dad’s mental disorder was not his fault; that made sense. If he worked his program, he would get better; that, too, made sense. All I had to do was wait.
Dad did not get better. Spring of my Freshmen year in college he committed suicide. That was devastating. But time has a way of healing things, if we wait. And so I began to hide my abused heart behind talent. Musical Theatre had been a hobby since I was 8 but it became my life. Practice makes perfect, as the old adage goes, and practice takes time, and I was willing to wait. Eventually I began to feel lost in the theatre. The schedule, the perfection, the catty-ness were alltoo much for my walled heart. I needed a change. Unsure of what that was I dabbled: travel, volunteer work, and classes that had nothing to do with my major. It's as though I was waiting for my life to come and find me.
God was in all of it. In the background where I kept Him safely hidden, I would pull Him out just when I needed Him and put Him away just as easy. It was as if He was no greater than my stuffed dog, Lucky, who I would drag around with me when I was a little girl.
Thankfully, through prayer and providential counsel, I started volunteering for the Parish youth group. There I was challenged to treat God like a person. Honestly, that invitation was always there but years of selfish ambition drowned out the call.
Singing was a personal as I could get, it was all I knew and all I had to give to Him, so I sang. To my utter astonishment, He sang back. I’m not talking about a hearing of the ear, but of the heart. I came to know His presence, peace, and love. All that time I had been waiting on life and He was waiting on me.
Slowly Jesus started to chip away at the walls of my tower. He invited me to take refuge in His heart. I would close my eyes and see myself resting in His arms. He healed me.He is still healing me.
There is nothing wrong with waiting when we wait with God. I spent years waiting for circumstances in life to change, for my dad to get better, for a husband, for a future career, for the hurt to go away, but that kind of waiting is in vain.
Psalm 62 says, “For God alone my soul waits in silence, from Him comes my Salvation, He only is my rock and my Salvation, I shall not be greatly moved.” Waiting with Jesus is an ongoing process. He is teaching me that He is all that matters. Parents can die and futures can be wrecked, but at the end of the day our salvation isn't in any of those things. It’s not that we can't care about other things and other people, it’s that, when we put all our hope and trust in Jesus, all that falls into place. It’s tough as a woman to let go and allow Him to move. But taking refuge in Christ literally means He carries you where He goes. Everyday I fail to trust Him. But I’m confident that He holds me and will never let me go.
Don’t be afraid! The Lord rewards those who are faithful to Him. My waiting has been rewarded time and time again. The Lord gives gratuitously.Your waiting will be rewarded too.
“...Trust in Him at all times Oh people, God is a refuge for us.”
