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| Holla for the garage door! |
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree
of life.”
--Proverbs 13:12
“This hope is treacherous, this daydream is dangerous.”
--Taylor Swift,
“Treacherous”[1]
“I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.”
--Psalm 40:1
My first piece of advice for anyone who decides to build a
house is this: Don’t be in a hurry.
Don’t be in a hurry. I’ve
often joked with my mom and dad that nothing moves fast—the phone calls,
emails, and meetings between me and my contractor and my consultant and my
construction manager and my company architect and my county surveyor, etc. Oh, and I forgot my bank. (How could I forget my bank?!!) We spend so much time just trying to get
ahold of each other—
waiting on pricing,
waiting on results,
waiting on revisions,
waiting on the weather.
I waited 18 months to break ground on my house and am now
waiting a few more months for my house to be built and be ready for me to move
in. (This isn’t typical timing, so if you build, you could probably move much
faster than that.) Thus, I can’t write
about my house without writing about waiting.
I have noticed in the Bible that the Hebrew word qavah can be translated as both “to
wait” and “to hope.” The King James
Version states Isaiah 40:31 as “But they that wait (qavah) upon the
LORD shall renew their strength.” The
New International Version states the same verse as “But those who hope (qavah) in the LORD will renew their strength.” This is because the
process of waiting is so closely connected with hoping. In fact, the definition for qavah is “to wait, look for, hope,
expect.”[2]
Waiting well includes hoping well.
Often, I have felt tired of waiting for my house. Really tired of waiting—but even more tired
of hoping for good news from my bank or my builder…only to receive another
email about another complication. People
would ask me where I was in the process, and I didn’t even want to talk about
it because I knew I was two seconds away from complaining. One day after I received a particular email
that told me of another delay, I literally gritted my teeth and wanted to kick
the wall. Every time! Every time I get
close, something else pops up!
It’s one thing to be bogged down, waiting until our next vacation.
But there is a deeper, heavier waiting that we carry on the “shoulders of our
heart”[3]
when we wait for some dream, some desire, some goal to come true.
Waiting for the call back after the interview.
Waiting for your family member to forgive.
Waiting for your work schedule to slow down.
Waiting for your strength to return after surgery.
Waiting for the chance to do that thing you’ve always hoped
to do.
Waiting for a break, waiting for a breakthrough.
Praying, seeking.
Waiting, hoping.
You’ve seen it.
You’ve felt it.
For me, it’s the question of hanging on or letting go of
some dream. I want to know if I should
keep hoping or stop. Stop crying about it.
Stop dominating conversations with it.
I want to stop waiting and just have the peace that comes after the storm. I anticipate move-in day, but what I’m really waiting
for is resolution from the turmoil: to
move on and feel peace, so I can appreciate the new things.
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| Starting insulation |
Recently I was reorganizing my office at work, and I came
across an old notebook from my time in college.
I flipped through the pages and found a poem I had written several years
ago. I had forgotten about writing it,
but as I read through the lines, I remembered everything. I had liked a guy who didn’t want to commit
to me; I was tired of getting my hopes up, but felt like it was impossible to
stop hoping. I knew time would tell, and
I just had to wait until then.
I started writing the poem after I read Proverbs 13:12: “Hope
deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Hoping and waiting bring a million
conflicting emotions that make the heart sick.
It’s so tricky to navigate through that waiting time with grace, honor,
patience, and unselfishness—but of course, that’s what I want to do: I want to wait well.
So I ripped the page out of the notebook. I typed the poem
onto my laptop, feeling happy that the Lord had brought me through that season
of waiting and even feeling blessed for the way things turned out and how I
grew through it.[4]
I’m confident I’ll feel the same way when I look back at the
season of waiting for my house. Honestly,
waiting for my house to be built isn’t that hard anymore because I see progress
each week.
Even if the progress is just some electrical wires...
But waiting for my house to get started was exhausting and
tumultuous because I didn’t know when
or what would happen. And that’s it, right? We don’t know when or what will happen. Should we
hang on or let go? Should we press
forward, or should we grieve the loss and move onto something new? Each situation is different, and that’s why
it’s confusing and hard. That’s the
essence of the challenge of waiting well. I'll talk more about this next week.
May God give you the strength to wait well. Just remember that God only gives good gifts. My friend Rachel told me that two years ago, and a few weeks ago, I thought about that as I walked through my house. Even in the midst of waiting, my hope is in a good Good who gives good gifts.
Forgive me for ending this post with my angsty college-girl
poem.
“Hope Deferred”
Hoping,
Hoping,
But I hang up the phone, and it’s done.
I stay in my seat, stare at my feet,
Can’t yet delete this dream.
It’s not going to happen.
Even my heart knows now—
But
how?
How long until I can let it go?
I want to wait well.
It’s hard to hope,
It’s hard not to hope.
I want to wait well.
How long until I can let it go?
How long?
How long until it leaves?
How long until I’m free?
It’s the one thing in the back of my mind,
the
professor analyzing
the
princess anguishing,
the prophet
predicting,
The person I share my silent conversations with,
That’s where it lives—
In the back
of my mind, making my heart sick.
I want to wait well.
It’s hard to hope.
It’s hard not to hope.
I want to wait well.
That’s where it lives—
In the back
of my mind, making my heart sick.
I’ve tried to make it leave,
Watched it walk away, blew it a kiss,
But I don’t want it to go.
Wish I could crawl on my knees,
cling
to its sleeves,
Oh
please,
Please!
“I’m afraid I’ll never see you again!”
Please—
Please just stay
In the back
of my mind.
I want to wait well.
It’s hard to hope,
It’s hard not to hope.
I want to wait well.
God, please,
If I let it go, do You have something,
Something
Something new.
I need new.
New dreams, new streams, new fountains to spring up a smile
in me.
I need new.
New hope, new birth, new life.
New eyes—open eyes—to see, to feel
The new morning.
The new season.
The new reason for hope.
I want to wait well,
I want to hope well.
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| Bahhh! The door people spelled my name wrong. :( |
[2]
(2013). Retrieved from Sowing Circle. http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H6960&t=KJV.
[4] (I
remember feeling that way in that moment, but now I’m like… who would have
thought I’d ever say that? Lol)
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