As a four-year-old child playing on our backyard swing set and repeating endlessly, “Christmas is in two days…” I had no idea how much of life would comprise waiting.

Everyone reading this column knows about waiting, and everyone has their own private waits for life changing events—so it would be supercilious to list examples. When I was a teen, I agonized over the thick black hair covering my legs, yet I was forbidden to shave them. I had to “wait” until I was older, meaning sixteen. I didn’t wait. We only had one razor in the house—my father’s. We were strictly forbidden to use it. I would sneak into the bathroom and use it to shave my legs anyway, and then face his wrath when he discovered that the blade was dull—again. My grandmother was the only one who understood. For Christmas, she bought me an electric razor. It was one of the best Christmas gifts I ever received because of her quiet perceptiveness and support, and I used it until it wore out.

Each time I finish a new book, the time between “The End” and getting it passed through the editor and released seems interminable. I suffer. I physically suffer. Wonder if the medical profession will someday decide that waiting causes illness?

Right now I am waiting for a hip replacement. That is a wait that definitely carries the price tag of suffering. We have taken money out of savings to go private for the surgery. With a special needs husband and dog, waiting is no longer an option. I wake up singing praises to the Lord (in my mind because I can’t sing, and I don’t want to wake up Alan) when I remember that God has made this surgery possible and it is finally imminent.

My next book is finished and waiting for release, too, so I am experiencing a wait-wait instead of a wait. But with God—I can handle it.

From my favorite Psalm, Psalm 27, “Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the LORD!

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