On Tuesday , we were due to have our first baby. People say that with your first child, it’ll probably come late and so don’t get your hopes up for an early or even on-time delivery.  But you all know me – I definitely expected ours to not make us wait. She’s been so active every single day for a couple of months now, and it made me believe she was hankering to come on out and start exploring the world.

Approaching that day, I was definitely getting antsy. I was like, come on Baby, we want to meet you! We want to hold you! We want to squeeze you! But apparently Rachel’s womb is incredibly hospitable, and there have been no real signs that the process of labor is beginning.  And now, it’s five days later. And part of me is thinking that this is never going to happen.

But it will.  I mean, it has to.  Baby has to come out.

Rachel and I are in between the promise and the fulfillment.  But it’s like we’re stuck, or paralyzed, or just caught in suspension. And it’s a feeling I (and probably you) know all too well from other pivotal experiences. Hoping for a girl or a boy to show interest in you. Longing for graduation when you’re barely a sophomore. Desperate to be an adult so you can do things your way. Waiting for retirement and the easy life.

Since Tuesday, I don’t even expect it to happen. In fact, I try not to even think about it. What’s the use?  I don’t want to be let down. When it happens, it happens, and until then we’re supposed to just live our life.

But I do have moments where I’m like, how are we supposed to just live our life? I mean, this is such a humongous deal! Like, one of the biggest things ever!

But I do have moments where I’m like, how are we supposed to just live our life? I mean, this is such a humongous deal! Like, one of the biggest things ever!

You can imagine (but you probably shouldn’t) that we’ve tried pretty much all of the suggestions that people have given us about naturally inducing labor.  Spicy foods.  Massages.  Lots of walking.  Sex.  Swimming.  Bouncing on a Pilates ball.  Eating pineapple.  Doing squats.  It’s not working.  Nothing is working.

And that’s familiar too.  Believing that something is going to happen, but seeing that God is taking His sweet time, and trying to force the issue. Haven’t we all been there and done that? I can’t just chill and go focus on something else.  I need to try to manipulate the situation so things happen on my own timeline.

<sigh>

All of this reminds me of one of the constant themes of my life: nothing happens for weeks and months and years and then BAM! God shows up.

This happened with my schooling.  With my career.  With publishing articles.  With love.  Long seasons of waiting, and then suddenly, surprisingly, something amazing happened.  But this is what God does, it seems.  I have written about this verse before, but Isaiah 47:3 makes this clear: “I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.”

God knows what’s up even in the middle of the silence, the stillness, the why-is-nothing-happening moments. He has a plan, and it’s for our good. Actually, it’s for our best.  It’s not like He’s sitting on His Hands.  The truth is just the opposite: He’s been at work all along – laying the groundwork, orchestrating the details, and fine-tuning the outcome.  Because we can’t see any of that, we start to believe that no tangible progress is being made. And then get frustrated.  And impatient. And annoyed.  And sad.

God knows what’s up even in the middle of the silence, the stillness, the why-is-nothing-happening moments. He has a plan, and it’s for our good.

And then we try to take matters into our own hands, which doesn’t work out (or at least doesn’t work out as well as we thought it would). That’s fitting, because we should have just waited on Him.

This last month has been tough, tougher than I thought it would be.  And we still haven’t even experienced what labor will be like.  But as for waiting for Baby to make a move, I’m done thinking about it.  Obviously, I am ready and stoked for it to happen, but I am not going to struggle with figuring God’s timeline, and I’m definitely done trying to speed up the process.

Another lesson in letting go.  You’d think I’d have mastered the skill by now, given how many times He’s tried to teach me.  But no, not yet.  He is gracious and patient with me, and I am constantly learning to be gracious and patient with Him.  There is a reason why Baby hasn’t come yet, and I don’t get to know.

I get to trust.

And I get to practice having childlike faith in a perfectly loving God.

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