while you wait…

My kids hate waiting for me.  I can’t say that I blame them, because waiting is hard sometimes.

If I’m standing at the sink with sudsy soap hands, washing dishes and they need something- a help, a listen, a look- I might often say “hold on just a second.” Being interrupted is a difficult thing and I don’t think I do a perfect job of this. I try to be gentle but firm, and establish some good boundaries. I get it wrong often. But I also distracted way too easily and I find myself leaving a trail of half started unless I’m determined to do otherwise. So I have learned to try to finish the ONE task I’m directly in the middle of. If not allll of the dishes, the one.

They may whine a bit or a lot depending on how long they must wait, how pressing their need feels or appears.  I remind them waiting is a part of life.  They have some of the utmost priority in my life, ranking highest except their two fathers, earthly and heavenly.  They are invaluable and important. But that doesn’t mean they get to interrupt or erupt into every other project, with their current one asserting the most imminent importance.  Because they must use manners.  Because their problem might be or might not be something to drop everything else for.  They are a part of a team.  And they  can’t always see the whole picture. 

They don’t see that while they’re waiting for me to untangle their knot, I’m washing their favorite dish or spoon for later.  While they interrupt and need help opening their snack, I’m making their more nourishing dinner.  

When they get restless I try to gently remind them.  
That while they wait for me there are things they can do.  I used to say to my toddler, who would be hanging by my feet as I stood at the kitchen sink or the counter- mixing, baking, working.   “You can sing a little song, you can dance, you can play while you wait.  You can read or tell me a story.  But you just can’t whine.”  
Sometimes my gentleness sounds more like scolding or using a booming voice.  To snap through the noise of their whining.  To remind them to stop.  To look around and to listen.  

As they’ve gotten older, I’ve asked them to pay attention, look around.  “See what it is I’mDoing.  I might already be doing what you’re whining about.  Just notice, please, before you start whining. Even if it’s not what you’re looking for me to do, it might be important, what you see.”

They also don’t see what my mind’s eye is looking at, they don’t hear my important thoughts.  What I’m figuring out, solving, listening for.  And that’s okay.  That’s not their job to know, it’s mine to finish.  Or at least to witness.  

I have parent things that I’m doing or involved in and it’s okay if they don’t understand. 

 When they were littler,  too little to reach the counter, they could only wait.  Too little to truly help.  Now that they can help more, I remind them that’s a part of it sometimes too.  But the best help is noticing, truly, what I’m doing first.  No, please don’t open the food coloring and start a science experiment without my blessing.  No, don’t argue with each other.  No, don’t whine at anyone.   Tell me how you feel when you have my attention, but don’t just fuss.  Sure, you can help me  with the dishes.  Sure, help your sibling if you can. Sometimes, help yourself too.  But notice. Always notice,  first, what I’m doing.  How it is I’m loving you, and working on something already.  Notice. And then, when you see how you’re loved right now, you can help love, too.  Even as you need, or think you need something different too.  
If that’s not true of us as adults, too. I don’t know what is. 
 With our Heavenly Father, we wait for Him to move or act or do something.  He’s already doing something.  Unlike me, He ALWAYS knows what’s most important.  He always goes and moves in the right order. 
I get restless as a child.  Impatient.  I can’t see up on the counter, what He’s doing or why it’s important. More important it seems, than whatever my tangled knots are.  I can’t see.  So many things.  
We have this new saying in our house.  When things get heated between siblings, or we feel frantic.  SLOW DOWN.  Knee jerk reactions or a hurried pace can sometimes cause more harm than the help that we seek.  
This is true for all humans -kids, adults, parents, all of us. With each other, with ourselves, and with God. When we want others to hurry up and we rush them, we cause more trouble than we help.  I  do guilty of that at times.  
True for when we’re waiting on God, too. 
When we want Him to hurry up, Thats when we need to slow things down for ourselves. To slow down. To stop. look.  listen.  To breaaaattthhhhhhheeee.  

To sit like a child, at the feet of the parent who loves us. (And the feeling is more than mutual.) 
Slow down.  And notice.   In fact, come and rest. Relax.  Rest from worry.  

He loves you and He sees you and He can untangle every knot.  Look for what He’s doing already now.  Because maybe that knot isn’t such a big deal after all.  And He’s working on something better.  Knowing in your mind’s eye, if not in your body’s, that He works ALL things together for good.  Maybe not how and when it is I’m frantically asking.  But for good, for our betterment, and our truest delight, not just our temporary one.  That we can trust. Because He loves us. 

Yes.  Come with your requests.  Come with your needs.  But slow down, enough to see what He’s working on.  And yes, He’s working all this together for good.  Whining is never a part of His equation and it doesn’t have to be part of yours either. 

Maybe you could just rest to begin with.  

Sing. Read. Tell a good story. Dance. You can wait with trust, and JOY, even.
Because kid, He’s got you.  This great God? He’s got you, if you let Him.  Don’t forget.  You can sit at His feet and notice something good, while you wait, too.