The lab intern steps to the open door and motions for me to “exit here, down the hall and to the left.” That’s it? That’s all that is said after you’ve just been informed that you have a small mass on one of your ovaries? Here’s the door!
I walk the length of the short hallway, looking to the office clerk ahead of me busily chatting on the phone; no, no eye contact – guess I simply leave. I turn left into the bright light of the waiting room, wondering, does my face show that I have just had unsettling news? What are these people here for? What type of news will their procedure reveal to them? So this is what it is like to journey this road? But what exactly is this road? I don’t know yet. I won’t know, likely for several days as results are read and forwarded to this or that doctor; and it is the week before Thanksgiving – I don’t imagine things will move rapidly. I’ve heard about sitting in God’s waiting room…
Is God’s waiting room anything like the waiting room of the imaging center; bright, stark, impersonal, Other’s sitting focused on their phones or reading material? Is it a confusing maze that I have to journey solo?
I continue straight away to the door, out into a relatively bright day for the Pacific Northwest and over to the privacy of my vehicle. Pleading with my mind to hold my emotions at bay until I am secluded inside my vehicle – don’t let the world see me weak, raw, vulnerable, and afraid – afraid of the unknown. Yet therein is the lie, for this is not an unknown.
This is new and unknown to me, but it is not unknown to the One who holds my story. To the Author of my story. A mass does not surprise Him, He already knows every detail about it. He knows the beginning and the end of this chapter of my story and more importantly, he has divine purposes for this chapter and He moves toward me in good and loving ways, always and in all ways. So the answer is, no, His waiting room is not stark, nor impersonal and the Other’s that He has intentionally and strategically placed in my life for this particular chapter move toward’s me in loving and supportive ways.
Strategic means include my move to the Pacific Northwest (PNW) for graduate school – which is no more. (More on that another time, but know that it was certainly not a mistake nor a failure.) For the time being I remain here in the home of people who so kindly welcomed me to reside with them on their poultry farm and work as a farm intern for room and board. These kind people, upon hearing the news – yet still so much unknown – offered whatever help I may need. They even opened their home if a friend might want to come be by my side to support me in whatever may lay ahead. My Sisters have been praying all week. My old church family is praying. My family is praying. My friends are praying. A very dear-to-me friend prayed over me Monday night – so that is what it feels like to have someone you care so much for, pray over you! Swoon!
I have long been away from my blog as I journeyed the final days of my divorce and then plunged headlong into an intensive undergrad program and within days of its completion transitioned to the beautiful PNW, investing all my worldly resources and personal energies into pursuing my graduate degree. Along with my academic venture I have needed space to grieve the death of my 30 year marriage. The loss of significant material goods and the adjustment in life that loss demanded. 2015-2016 found me drowning in graduate studies with not a spare moment or resource to genuinely live. For many months I have felt the call to return to my blog, though it will be decidedly different, as I am significantly different than years ago. Today, I made the decision to return to one of my loves – the expression of life through the written word. This reality check of setting in God’s waiting room draws me to record this journey.
The reality of this journey is that indeed, I am significantly different than who I was, what has it been three, maybe four years ago, since I last wrote. My faith has had many opportunities to grow, deepen, be enriched. God has lain many a gift via trials in my lap for me to embrace and grow sweeter or reject and grow bitter. This new chapter is yet another gift of opportunity to move toward my Lord in trust, resting in the peace that can only be found in the knowledge that I have nothing to fear for He is in control.
Might you set with me a spell as this new chapter unfolds?