So here we are… or rather, here I sit, in the dark of the night trying to figure out just how to explain where I am without it being boring or tedious. But how can I write something other than what is? Because this all seems so boring and tedious to me.
Because waiting seems tedious.
And that’s where I am.
Waiting.
Waiting on phone calls and insurance companies and explanations.
And here I am.
I spent way too much time on the phone Thursday and Friday to hear, “Well, the doctor wants you to have the biopsy and not the PET because insurance might not cover it because it’s more expensive.” Soooo… can we find out?
I talked her into just scheduling it to see if insurance would approve it. In the meantime, I’m to discuss it again with Brian and take my time because, in the nurse’s words, “There’s no urgency here.”
I went crazy in my mind (because we all know I’m not. quite. there. yet.) with a, “WHAT?!” How is there no urgency here? I still don’t have an answer to that one… but I do have a PET scan scheduled, so I’m just gonna go with it.
Yesterday the nurse called to give me my appointment time (and it’s at the hospital I prefer–praising God for that), and I asked her if insurance had approved it. She still didn’t know, so if they don’t approve it, they’re going to call me and let me know.
So here I am.
Waiting.
Thursday morning at 8:30 is the PET scan pending insurance approval.
And I sit here in the dark and I pray… I pray for peace and strength, for my family, for friends. There are so many hurting people in my life. I pray to know God more and more. I pray for truth.
Because isn’t this what I need? What I want?
I want comfort, but I need the comfort that truth brings. I need truth to speak into the darkness. I need to dig deep into the wells of God and Who He is and what is true in His Word. And as I sit here in darkness, the truth shines the light and the fountains of grace overflow.
And I find that this place of waiting… well, it isn’t tedious or boring. It’s hard yes, but it’s beautiful, too.
“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Luke 12:27)
Consider.
How lilies grow.
They spend more time buried underneath the ground in dark coolness than they do sprouting up and shining forth.
They spend most of their life waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
The Lord sends what they need when they need it, and they wait for Him to send it. Then they sprout and they grow and they are breathtaking when they bloom. And then it is time for them to die, but they never really die, they just lose their plumage. Their shoots and flowers die, but their bulb lives underground.
Whenever I thought about that verse, I always pictured the splendor of the flower, the beauty of the lily.
But in order for the lily to be beautiful, it must share dark earth with worms. The bulb is where the nutrients are and they are either producing flowers or storing up nutrients from the earth around them so they can produce flowers the next season. In order to bloom, they must store up food… and in order to grow they need the light.
How like my heart!
I want the beautiful array of lilies to shine all the time. But the reality is, I need the periods of waiting or hiding. I experience the darkness so I will hunger for the light.
And I am learning over and over and over again that this darkness, this waiting is a gift.
So like the lilies, I wait.
I wait and store up nutrients from the Word, seeking His Kingdom first.
I wait and I know that when He is ready, He will work in ways I never would have imagined.
And the results will be breathtaking.
Because the results will be all about Him.
Yes.
Consider the lilies… how they grow.
I like that.
(Written March 31, 2011)
A Spring of Joy 
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