waiting...

I don't think there is anything in life that actually prepares you for one of the children in your life to be sick. That being said, I think my brother and sister-in-law are handling Jayden's illness, and the roller coaster of emotion and information as well as anyone ever could.

The waiting, however, is the part I could do without.

Loralie, my sister-in-law wrote a great post on Jayden's CaringBridge website about patience. She sums the virtue up brilliantly.

And while I wholeheartedly agree, there are times in life when I wish the road of faith wasn't so darn slippery, shifting, unpredictable and unknown. But, I suppose, that would like wanting water to not be wet.

Apparently wishes do not need to be rooted in reality.

I read this poem/prayer from Walter Brueggemann's brilliant book, Prayers For A Privileged People last week, and knew that there would be a time when I would need it. Today is that day.

Waiting and Longing
—Walter Brueggemann, Prayers For A Privileged People

God of the seasons,
God of the years,
God of the eons,
    Alpha and Omega,
    before us and after us.

You promise and we wait:
                          We wait with eager longing,
                          we wait amid doubt and anxiety,
                          we wait with patience thin
                                                and then doubt,
                                                and then we take life into our
                                                                            own hands.

We wait because you are the one and the only one.
We wait for your peace and your mercy,
    for your justice and your good rule.

Give us your spirit that we may wait
    obediently and with discernment,
    caringly and without passivity,
    trustingly and without cynicism,
    honestly and without utopianism.

Grant that our wait may be appropriate to your coming
        soon and very soon,
        soon and not late,
        late but not too late.

We wait while the world groans in eager longing.