Impatiently Patient – When “YES” Really Means “Wait”

I am the Impatiently Patient Single. The Impatiently Patient Photographer.  The Imaptiently Patient…you name it.

I’ve become OK with waiting.

I gave up putting timelines on anything a long time ago as it’s simply not up to me.

Planning things, setting deadlines, adding in time to try to make sure I’d be early only to still be late, all of which just simply proved to be in vain.

This is a new kind of hard though.  Just when I’d come to grips with the monumentous call God cornered me with last September.  Just when I had started researching, planning, taking the necessary steps….

Sometimes a “YES” from God isn’t a “yes” of action, but instead a “yes” of obedience.

Sometimes a yes from God results in the answer of “Just wait…I just needed to know you were ready”.

I’ve become an expert at waiting, but still those are by far the hardest “yeses” to give.

We’ve jumped. We’re ready.

The anxiety and doubts have been put to rest, finally, we’ve made peace we’re about to be gloriously shaken up…thrown in the deep end, finally ready to swim.

“LET’S DO THIS Lord!!”

“Wait!” -God

“But I’m ready NOW!! I KNOW you are calling me to this? I’ve already started preparing! I’m READY!”

“I know…but wait!  It’s not perfect just yet.  Behold, I am doing a new thing. Do you not see it? It’s already started, but you must wait!”  -God

By far the hardest words to “hear” when you’ve already braced yourself and leaned in, ready to weather the storm.

Excitement and expectation turn to sadness and longing.

You were ready…or so you thought.

That’s where I am. Where I’ve been.

I was ready.

After all He broke me DOWN.  Sent me to a beautiful place with speaker after speaker driving the nail further in to prepare me for a life changing journey.  One full of so many things I’ve wanted for so so long.

I bucked. I wrestled. I FOUGHT.  For MONTHS. Harbored bitterness and resentment at all this was going to change…all that it would complicate.

Finally one night though “What are you waiting for?” Was asked by sweet Mary Marantz down in Rome, Georgia in a small chapel packed with 150 something Jesus loving women.  “What are you letting fear hold you back from?”

I was DONE. Floodgates opened from my eyes. Feet that didn’t feel like mine walked me to a stage turned alter where I knelt and WEPT.

#UGLYCRYING in hard.core. Holy Spirit fashion.

Peace. Precious peace I received the day I accepted Christ way back in December 2001 washed over me….because I let go.  It’d been there all along, it always is, but I was fighting…until then.

I was ready.  Finally.  Running, wrestling, trying to hit God with the “flaws” and “impossibilities” of His plan ended.

“Be not afraid.  I did not give you a spirit of fear.”

“Yes, Lord!”

I started trying to prepare, and then….*SMACK* I hit a wall this past week.

I looked for ways around the wall, over it, under it.  It was the week of my 32nd birthday…it was TIME!

Time to get started having a LIFE, maybe not in the order I wanted it, but in God’s beautiful, non-sensical to me, timing.

The wall only grew.  Taller, longer, wider.  No way over, around, or under.  This wall wasn’t meant to move.

“Wait. Not yet. I just needed to know you’d be ready.”

So here at the wall I wait. Ready to charge forward when He brings it down.

Time after time He’s brought walls down for His people, His plan, and He’s going to do it again.

He just needed to make sure my heart and spirit were ready.

Sometimes a “Yes, Lord!” isn’t meant to be an action, right then, it’s just simply a “Yes, Lord!” and *crickets* as we wait.

I feel someone else reading this is here too.  You’re beyond ready.  You’re broken. “…but wait.”

Lean in harder. Stand ready.  Enjoy the beauty of the stretching, trusting, breaking.

Because when that “Yes” of obedience becomes an action “YES! It’s time!” hold on!

It’s going to be the best ride you never could’ve imagined.

XOXO,  B

The Impatiently Patient Single