The Waiting Room

On Thursday morning, I brought a good friend to the hospital to get a procedure done. He wouldn't be able to drive home afterward, and so I waited for the two hours or so for him to go through the procedure and rest up to be able to head home.

The waiting room, while it did have coffee, had no wifi. And no cell phone service, unless I walked about 50 yards to another room and stood by the window. So there I found myself, for two hours... waiting. It was one of the best times of quiet that I've had all week. Sitting. Slowing Down. Reading. Thinking. Pra'ing.

The circumstances required me to sit and wait and just be still for a little bit. I would not have imposed these conditions upon myself - and yet the time was so good. Why do we so often hate waiting rather than embrace it?

On Thursday afternoon, I went to NTB to change the tires on Bethany's car. I also showed up with no wallet and no cell phone (silly me. But NTB looked up my account and allowed me to pay anyways.) That left me waiting in the NTB waiting room for 90 minutes, where there was no wifi, and I have no cell phone. That's two times of forced stillness in one day. It was another very refreshing time - and again, imposed upon me rather than self-imposed... which is too bad.

Waiting in stop-and-go traffic that you can do nothing to change. Waiting on hold for 40 minutes until a live customer service rep comes on. Waiting for the nurse to call your name so the doctor will see you. In our culture, we hate waiting, and we think to ourselves, "I've got things to do. Let's hurry this up. Come on..."

Or we can take the imposed time of waiting and use it to slow down, think, read, be still.

In some things, perhaps the Father imposes 45 minutes of waiting upon us. In other things, perhaps the waiting time is 4 months or 5 years. What will I do with that time?