We didn't get the news we wanted at the doctor this week. We expected to go in for Shepherd's follow up heart scan and get an all clear. We thought we would walk out relieved that it was all behind us, this season of waiting and wondering and worrying about our little guy and his little beats. All signs were pointing that way. But the human heart functions a lot different inside the womb than outside. Things change and drop off and shift and switch after birth - it is pretty amazing. But in all that, we are now able to see that he has a slightly narrow aorta. For now it is ok -- as ok as it can be when discussing a major organ abnormality in your tiny baby's body ... blah!. But we need to go back again in two months to see if it has improved, stayed the same or gotten worse. The words "heart surgery" were again spoken in that doctor office, something I thought we didn't have to discuss anymore, but it could now again be a possibility.
Will you pray for him? For his little aorta that it grows larger and stronger and that he will be able to live a normal life and be spared from having to have surgery. Please pray for my little dude and his little heart. It helps.
So now, we wait. For two months. Gross.
But I know I am not the only one who is in a season of waiting. Waiting for health news, waiting for grief to lift ever so slightly, waiting for a spouse, a job, direction, answers, babies - waiting.
I hate waiting. It is hard. It is hard to be in a place of pain and discomfort, a place you don't want to be in or ever asked to be in, and there is nothing you can do to dig yourself out. There is no quick fix. You can't fast forward time. No matter how much you pray or plead or hope or "put it out in the universe," you can't make things happen until it is just...the right time. And the right time definitely is not always my time. Actually, it never is. But luckily God knows way more than my little pea brain ever can comprehend. I believe it, I do. Looking back on my life I can see how things played out in perfect timing, for perfect reasons. But yet, waiting is still TOUGH. Right now, I don't want to wait two months to know what will happen with my sweet baby boy. I want an answer today, and I want the answer to be what I think is best -- can ya feel me? But I know it doesn't work like that. So I wait. Because there is no other option. Often in these seasons, there is no other option but to wait.
So, if you are waiting like me, I want you to know something. I see you. I hear you. I know its weird and hard and hard to explain to people how much it is driving you crazy. I know that you wan't to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else but yet you wait. I see you waiting, quietly. Don't give up. The end will come. The season will change. Life is hard but also so good and the good always shows up.
Until then, I hope you will do the little things that make waiting easier. You may have to carve them out extra intentionally, but I hope you do. Go out with your friends and laugh until you pee. Or, stay in with people you love most and eat a lot of M&Ms - preferably the blue ones. Read Jim Gaffigan books in your bed at night when anxiety is keeping you awake. Have living room dance parties to cheesy 80s songs. Join the group you have been wanting to join. Buy the outfit. Take the risk. Get the latte. Get all the lattes actually. You deserve them.
But above all the little things, I hope you pray. Pray loud and clear, over and over and over, even if you don't feel like you are being heard. Pray with confidence, even if you don't feel it. Pray for strength just to get through the tough days and watch what happens. Pray for joy and then expect it to show up. Be honest, be bold, have hope and then hold on tight bro. Because your time will come. Seasons will pass. Things will get easier or hurt less. Good things do happen and can happen and will happen. And while you wait, I hope you don't forget that.
So, to all the waiting warriors, I am with you. God is with you and working and stretching us along the way. Don't give up hope.
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. — Anne Lamott
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