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<strong>This is the time of year when waiting tends to be an exciting activity.</strong> There are so many traditions to look forward to, so many presents and delicious food to anticipate.

<strong>But waiting can be a miserable state, too.</strong> I've been witnessing that sort of waiting in my nine-year-old daughter lately. Her very best friend is moving away at the end of January. S has been crying periodically ever since she learned about the impending move, a few months ago. As the date grows nearer, though, S has become overcome with sadness—almost paralyzed by it.

As we talked about it a few days ago, I told her that I have the same tendency. I conjure up so much anxiety anticipating things I'm dreading or worried about, that I can no longer do anything productive with my worry or sadness. I can no longer focus on what <em>is</em>, rather than what will (or might) be.
<h4>What waiting in hope looks like</h4>
Last week, after reading my Advent post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=538">Waiting without a calendar</a>, my mom shared this with me in an email:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I just read two good devotions by Henri Nouwen about waiting. Here's one quote: <strong>"A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, believing that this moment is </strong></em><em><strong>the moment,"</strong> He refers to the Advent people in Luke's gospel as "waiting actively ... knowing that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing." </em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>In another place he says, "I have found it very important to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. <strong>When I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God, something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me.</strong>" He talks about "choosing to hope that something is happening for us that is far beyond our own imaginings. It is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God molds us in love, holds us in tenderness, and moves us away from the sources of our fear." Isn't that powerful?!</em></p>
So powerful. And so true.
<h4>As we wait, are we pointed in the wrong direction?</h4>
Because what S is waiting for, really, isn't for her friend to move, even though that date looms large in her life right now. She's waiting for hope—that she and her friend will stay in touch and get to see one another. That she will find a new friend who understands her and enjoys playing and pretending in the same ways. She is waiting for evidence that her life is "precious and meaningful in the eyes of God." And in the meantime, she needs to pull some mind-over-matter tricks to try to be "present to the moment."

Of course, that is a lot to ask of a nine-year-old. It usually feels like a lot to even expect of myself.

<strong>But I have seen evidence that my life is precious to God, and I've seen it through exactly what Nouwen describes: <em>"...something really new, something beyond my own expectation."</em> </strong>So I told S about how lonely I felt before I met Jason, and how absolutely certain I was that there could be no one out there to love and appreciate all the different aspects of who I am.

God had a different story in mind for me, though, and he brought Jason to me—growing right "from the ground on which [I was] standing." (Here's <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=6">some background</a> on that story.)

As a parent, I can hardly stand to see the pain my daughter is going through, but I am also looking forward to waiting, with her, to see what God will grow in her life.