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The Waiting


In the pristine exercise studio the tan instructor (who is nice and thin and not pregnant!) instructs the expecting ladies around her in a perfectly orchestrated workout.  They move smoothly through the routine without breaking into a sweat and smiling sweetly all the time.  If only they could see this workout video played out in a real house with real tiny children and an out of shape pregnant mom!  I am on all fours trying to do the seriously modified pushups with Abby clinging to my middle in protest and Alena whacking me in the face and laughing hilariously each time I come up!

I just give up and lay there laughing.  I am truly glad that there is no video of us!  Sometimes having two tiny ones can make life seem a little crazy.  Nevertheless, after some recent conversations with friends whose children are teenagers, I realize that I might be in the easiest part of parenting after all.  It's true that last week I found a girl and her crib covered in poop, barely stopped her sister from munching the dead grasshopper on the porch, and heard my husband yell for help when one of them decided the tub was a good place to relieve constipation!   On the other hand, my little ones can't hop in the car and drive away, and every decision they make does not have the potential to impact the rest of their lives.  I find myself contemplating how so much of my time in the future years will be spent waiting for outcomes.

My thoughts circle this idea of waiting...Waiting for your teenager to come home at night.  Waiting as your child deals with some form of the pain that is sure to find us all in this life.  Waiting for a distant spouse to re-engage.  Waiting for the doctor's test results.  Waiting for your baby to be born healthy.  Waiting to see your little girl again when she has slipped into heaven before you.

Perhaps most of life is about waiting.  About being in between.  That strange place where you realize your grasp of control is much looser than you would like.  Will we wait well?  Will I wait well?  I read once that the only thing we can grasp without damaging our souls is His hand.  I wish that were as simple a it sounds!  But maybe it is.  Maybe the flip side of waiting is abiding.  And the journey here  is really about turning the impatient minutes and seconds into breath prayers that say " I trust you."  Even when it doesn' t feel that way.

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