Waiting, waiting in line at the food store, do you always search out the shortest line or the line? It seems to be moving the quickest only to have it slow to a turtle's pace. Once you join it, waiting in traffic as it snarls along, slowing to a snail's pace, waiting for your turn for your appointment, the your next phenomenon, waiting in a queue only to have someone but in line and boy are you irritated. Waiting, not my strength as I mutter under my breath at the annoyance and the nerve of some people. Are you waiting for anything on today's podcast? This is what I will be talking about. Waiting, waiting on these little things, the waiting in line at a food store or a box store waiting for your turn in line, waiting to be called for your appointment, but then there is this other type of waiting waiting until we do something or accomplish something or achieve something. Perhaps waiting for something to come to an end or for a new beginning. Waiting. It isn't my strong point. It often feels more like punishment or banishment. Delayed gratification. Why must I wait? Whether self imposed or beyond my control, I do not do well with waiting. I almost always ask why and in waiting when it's self imposed, it is usually as punishment like I won't buy myself nice clothes until I lose some weight because I don't want to buy fat clothes and like me with the clothes. Sometimes the waiting is self imposed. We put off things waiting for that perfect situation or until we lose weight or until we get our hair colored or until after vacation or waiting perhaps waiting for your children to get a bit older so you can pursue that hobby or dream or maybe waiting for a new job to arise or a circumstance to change so that you can enjoy life. Waiting for circumstances to change leaves us in a state of discord with our soul. Our children deal with waiting. They can hardly wait until they are in the next grade or in high school or can go to college. We went through this to our children can hardly wait until they can drive until they are emancipated. They're waiting for that time to come. Oh, we miss so much when we focus on the waiting, why don't we put things off and wait. Sometimes it has indeed beyond our control, the waiting, like waiting for our farm to sell here in New Jersey. I must wait for the buyer to come along and see the wonder and beauty that I saw in this place or waiting to hear back from a possible job or opportunity. There is the waiting til you find that one you want to marry. This can be a hard waiting as months and years passed by waiting or married now, waiting to get pregnant. Perhaps the heartrending waiting to see if you can get pregnant. Times of waiting. It can be a trial to our soul, a heaviness of our spirit, a weight on her heart, joy buried beneath the burden of waiting. Then there's this soul wracking waiting, the nerve wracking, waiting to hear back from the doctor about a diagnosis or a prognosis. Wondering as you wait, what will life look like after you received the news? How long will you have? How many days to be with the ones you love waiting or you may already have a medical diagnosis, but you wait to see how the situation will play out for you. What will life look like for you and your loved ones when you're dealing with this medical condition or there is a waiting to hear back from an adult child that has become a stranger, not having heard from them in weeks or months or perhaps even years wondering as you wait, what their life is like, how they're doing, waiting or there's the waiting here back from an attorney regarding an issue that looms like a dark cloud, waiting for responses. What will happen in each imagined scenario? Waiting for answers, waiting. It's part of life's journey. Does it ever get easier? I don't think so. We wait, hands folded or wringing our hands and our hearts mind weighed down with worry, disturbing our thoughts and our sleep and our life, holding onto thoughts and worries and concerns and wondering as we wait. Yet we can't escape waiting and not being able to escape. The weighting feels almost like we are trapped. Hemmed in by three sides as we wait for the gate of the fourth side to open and we focus on the waiting. The. I can't wait until I graduate from high school. I can't wait until I finished college and get a good job. I can't wait until I get married. I can't wait until I have children. I can't wait until I'm doing the thing that I love. We finally have enough money to take the vacations we want or purchased the house we want. We can't wait until that happens. Waiting instead of living and enjoying life now, waiting for the opportunity to happen or the event to occur or the news to be revealed. We wait and in most cases of waiting while we are waiting, we miss out on what is right before us. If we focus on the waiting amidst the weighting amidst the annoyances and the anx anxiousness, we miss life amidst the pain. Amidst the heartache we miss what could be we miss the life before us or when things are more grim, when the waiting is health related or financial burdens are relationship related. Still, when we focus on the waiting, we are giving it far more power than it's meant to have. Waiting does serve a purpose. If we had the right focus and the right mindset, it's not easy, the simple statement of waiting because it has a purpose, but this thought from Ann voskamp musing sums up what we can do while waiting and it changes our perspective. It changes our mindset. This truth can be applied to any situation easier to deal with some than others, but it is applicable to any situation and says while waiting, do what waiters do. Serve easy but not necessarily simple. As I said, it begins with a mindset shift, and truly this mindset can be applied to any situation we faced, regardless of the difficulty and more powerful commensurate with how difficult the waiting is. For instance, my beloved friend and mentor, Helene, she served an even even when she was bedridden due to poorly executed healthcare, which eventually took her life. She continued to reach out to women to encourage them in their life's mission, speaking truth to them, her mindset was serving even if it meant no longer traveling abroad. To share her message even well, it meant that her arena was now beside her hospital bed. She still served in her waiting, a sweet young woman, a new bride has stage four breast cancer, yet she serves with her blog and her kind spirit.

She is painfully aware that her time is short, but her mindset is to educate, encourage, and share her journey of facing cancer. You can check out her [email protected] queen. Friends who are financially in very difficult situations offer help to those indeed. Friends who have a large family on a small income waiting for there needs to be met. Seek ways they can help and share and give, and as heart eight crushes us, waiting for a relationship to be restored. We can lift others hearts and encourage them serving them while we wait. What I'm saying is that we can serve while we're waiting in whatever circumstance we are waiting for, even when it is difficult and seemingly impossible, it is a mind mindshift should excuse me, a mind shift that must occur. So I began asking myself as I've had a season of waiting, how I can serve those in my life as I wait because my waiting, it is by comparison much easier than the ones I described.  Nonetheless, it is still challenging to remain mindful, engaged in the moment, refusing to worry about each scenario that creeps into my mind while I wait. Rather I serve, I'm. I'll be there for others. I served by listening and caring and sharing. There are ways to serve while in the waiting phase, there are ways to serve well in the wilderness, have life when things are not particularly clear as to what the next step is. And this is right where I am. Have you ever experienced this too? So while we wait, we serve. There are ways to serve right in our backyard and oftentimes in our homes. So today I have asked myself how can I serve my young adult children? Each one is going off on their own life journey with changes and challenges all their own. How can I serve my husband and I do not mean this as being his doormat, but how can I make his day a bit easier? How can I walk in his shoes, having and showing compassion for all he goes through each day? How can I serve my friends each with their own sandwich, life of caring for children at home and parents and need friends that face health challenges or financial challenges or emotional pain? I also asked myself, how can I serve elsewhere in my current neighborhood, in my current community and beyond? Sometimes the serving is just greeting a neighbor and visiting with them as we see one another at the mailbox or in the local store. Sometimes the serving is offering a smile to someone who may not return it, but they've seen it. They've seen your smile serving can be actually asking the cashier how they are doing and really mean it, engaging their heart, and I love this example of my serving. An example of serving my dear friend always does. After placing our meal order, she asks the server since we will be praying over our meal, is there anything that you would like prayer for? Out of the numerous times I have witnessed her asking this, the response is heartwarming. There has only been one time where the waiter has said, no, I'm good. Everyone else was so touched by her caring and by her serving even in my cyber community as I wait. How can I serve and share? There's always good we can do. There's always ways to reach out serving and loving others. My heart is stirred by the stories who reach out from their hospital bed waiting but serving. There are stories of those who are imprisoned for their faith, having done nothing wrong yet they keep keeping continue serving, and there are those who have little yet served out of what they have while we wait served. It changes our perspective. It changes the way we think and respond, and sometimes most of the time really if I'm in a funk serving kicks, that stinking thinking right out that funk of not wanting to wait, that funk of impatience and ingratitude, I'm not promoting buisiness. We have enough of that going on in our lives, but rather a heart of serving and there is a huge difference between business and serving others and the weighting it gives us that quiet time, that self imposed or circumstance imposed time to reflect and think as we serve and if we are Christ followers, the weighting gives us more time with him, with less distractions. Frenetic busyness eliminated. Instead, the quietness of waiting. A dear friend reminded me of this privilege to hang out with God in response to a post. Ultimately, the waiting is a time to draw close to Jesus, eliminate buisiness and distractions and it may look like not a lot is going on, but waiting on him is the ultimate and best use of our time. Reflecting on life, growing a, settling in, a settling of who we are, our true identity. This can be the fruit of waiting. If we have the right perspective and the correct mindset, just as with developing any relationship, we get to know God in the only way humanly possible. By time, time with him and in so doing, our soul is filled and refreshed them. It can know how better to serve and have the resources to serve. Truth is this is the only way it really can happen and be sustained, waiting and while waiting. Serving because in serving we can love even while waiting, serve and love. Serving is a form of loving. Oh, that word waiting. It sounds punitive to me until I meditate on it's wonderful benefits time with God, the father and opportunities to do good and serve. Waiting, enjoying the quiet, enjoying the stillness, enjoying the presence of God, mindful of opportunities to serve others in love. While we wait, until next time, this is Sandra Vernon with the art of connection. Thanks for joining me.