Even if this wait never ends

These fall days are my favorites. The cooler days, constantly changing colors, and yes, even the rain somehow resonate with my soul more than any other season.

Today as I drove to my next destination, I found myself looking at the beautiful trees and wondering what it is about all this change that I love so much. Perhaps it is how fast it comes. I drove the same direction only a week ago, and yet...everything is different now. The colors are more vibrant; the reds and yellows and oranges deeper than before. Some trees have already begun to shed their glory. I realize I like change I can see. I like to know what is coming.

I am in a season of what feels like perpetual waiting. Of wondering if change is ever going to come, or if it is just around the bend. I don't know, because I can't see it happening. I've held the weight of big dreams for so many years, and yet here I stand...still carrying them like so much baggage, watching as others unwrap their dreams and wondering when I will be able to do the same. I like change I can see, and yet I am blind to what is before me.

These days, my heart empathizes with the Abraham of the Bible. He had dreams too, and he carried them for years and years and years before unwrapping them into reality. I wonder if he felt this too--this desperation, a grasping for any sort of glimpse into that promised gift. I wonder if he looked around and felt like everyone else was unwrapping what he had been promised.

I wish I could sit down with him and ask about that season...that season that lasted decades and probably felt even longer. Did he feel alone in the waiting? Did he ever just want to throw in the towel and give up the trusting and say enough is enough? Did he long to know...when? I ask all those questions myself, and I want to know if this man who was "credited as being righteous" ever asked questions himself.

As I take a long walk today and try to find joy in the waiting...glory in this mundane...trust in the unseen, I will think about Abraham.

I will think about the God who promised him descendents that outnumbered the stars, the God who brought his promise to fruition...but not in the way or time or place that Abraham had counted on. 

I will think about Abraham and so many others, who "were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect" (Hebrews 11:39-40). 

I will pray for bigger trust...that my heart would be strengthened by faith, even if this wait never ends.