1. Waiting Rooms…
I don’t like waiting. I like to get on with things, make them happen. So, when I find myself repeatably in a place where I have no control over events and must just wait, I struggle. It’s a bit like at the airport when you’re heading on that big overseas holiday (pre-Covid when we actually went to airports!) – you arrive early. Get through all the checks and then wait… There’s a least a couple of hours to go. You get something to eat, have another drink, wander around the duty-free shops. But time drags…
Upon receiving my referral to the ENT ( Ear, Nose, and Throat) specialist, I rang for an appointment, it was November 2020. I was informed they could fit me in in February 2021 – 3 months wait to find out what was going on with my voice. By God’s grace, that wait was cut short when a cancellation meant I only waited a week.
The specialist looked at my throat with a tiny camera and showed me my very enlarged and red right vocal cord. She then ordered tests which I was able to get done within a week but then a two week wait for the results which were inconclusive, so I was booked in for a biopsy under anaesthetic in another month. Christmas came and went and still I didn’t know what was causing my problem.
In January 2021 I had the biopsy and then waited another two weeks for the results. By now I was anxious, a bit scared, and thoroughly sick of waiting! The results when I finally got them showed that I had a cancerous growth on my right vocal cord which would need treating.
The waiting continued for appointments with a radiotherapy oncologist as radiotherapy was considered the best option; then the preparation for the treatment, and finally on March 10th I was to commence. Five months after seeing my doctor for the first time.
But the waiting didn’t end here. On March 9th I received a call from my oncologist to say that due to earlier radiotherapy in the same areas some twenty years ago for an unrelated cancer, there were some possible and significant life changing side effects and maybe surgery might be a better route which may also have some life-changing results.
We agreed to put the radiotherapy on hold for a few days so that the ENT team at the hospital could discuss the options which could include surgery – back to the waiting room not knowing what the next steps would be.
Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.
Psalm 62:5-6
Waiting is hard, but it forces us to look to God to see us through each day. Waiting calls on us to stop, call a halt to action, rest and accept that we are not in control. It is a time for quiet and sitting at God’s feet. It is a time for relying on Him for whatever lies ahead. It is a time for prayer and contemplation…
Don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything…. then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your heart and mind as you live in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
It’s easy to say “don’t worry” but harder to put into practice. In the days, weeks, and months I spent in the waiting room I found myself constantly painting a picture of what my life may look like if I lost the ability to speak, the ability to eat normally. When we begin to paint pictures of what might happen then worry creeps in, we become anxious and start to despair. Peace evades us. But God’s peace is available even in the middle of the waiting and I have experienced it when I have quieted my soul as John Michael Talbot sings in his version of Psalm 131:
In the quiet I have stilled my soul, like a child at rest on its mother’s knee, I have stilled my soul within me…
Just come to the quiet. Come and still your soul like a child at rest on its daddy’s knee. Come and still your soul completely.
Come to The Quiet, John Michael Talbot
We meet with God, Soul to soul, Spirit to spirit. We commune with him when we still ourselves and let everything else fly out the window. There is an intentionality in quieting our souls. This is not passivity, waiting to see what happens, but a deliberate move inward towards him. Like Mary, we need to move out of the busy kitchen and into the living room if we want to sit at Jesus’ feet. (My Heart – Christ’s Home, Robert Boyd Munger).
And when we make that move, we begin to experience his peace deep within and we are able to rest in God…
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 11:28-29
I don’t know what you might be waiting for right now. It could be, like me, a medical diagnosis, or exam results, your life partner, a job interview, a new baby, funds to help you continue your ministry. Whatever you’re waiting for be assured you are in God’s waiting room, and he waits with you. Take time to sit with him each day, starting today. Tell him about your worries and leave them with him. Whatever the outcome you are still his child, and he loves you beyond imagining. Whatever comes at the end of the waiting he will be with you as you move forward on the journey of life.
Prayer: None of us wants to wait, we all hate queues at the checkout! We surrender our waiting times to you. Teach us new things in the waiting, change us where we need to be changed. Gives us your peace and rest as we sit at your feet trusting in you to take us through the waiting and into whatever comes at the end of it.
Amen
Action: are you currently sitting in the waiting room? If so take an hour or two out of your schedule today. Rearrange those appointments, turn off the TV. Find a quiet spot and bring your waiting to God. Tell him about it, about your fears and concerns then hand the waiting over to him. Sit quietly and listen for his voice. Let his peace and rest flow through you. What is he saying to you?
Journal your thoughts:
