"They also serve who only stand and wait."

One message stands out today. "They also serve who only stand and wait."

I found this while reading today's Streams in the Desert devotional. And then a friend has forwarded me an article from Fr. James Donelan, S.J entitled "The Sacrament of Waiting".

All these things have reminded me of the first devotional I read from Streams in the Desert, which is about God's loving challenge, "to think of the deepest, highest, worthiest desire and longing of our hearts, something which perhaps was our desire for ourselves... That thing God intends to do for us, if we will let Him." - Nothing is too hard, by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman (6-Nov).

For days I've been asking what my next stop will be. Maybe because it's the beginning of another year again. I've been asking and waiting.. no, I've been demanding at first, apathetic the second, ending up not being sure of whether each step I take is according to what He wills for me.

"For if we never learn to wait, we will never learn to love someone other than ourselves."

He taught me something important again today. All the while, I was expecting. Giving up the waiting was a means to avoid disappointment, convincing myself that it's the only way towards acceptance.

I forgot all about hope. That whatever happens, things will work out well. After all, I'm only here for His purpose.

I feel that this is an important day. Because for the first time in my life, I'm sure that each and every second of my life, each event, each situation, each person, are all here acting for His one single purpose. That for a brief moment, I saw His Hand on me.

Someone is coming. I'm too elated, it's leaving me breathless.


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THE SACRAMENT OF WAITING
Fr. James Donelan, S.J.

The English poet John Milton wrote that those who serve only also stand
and wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait render
the highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline, more
self-control and emotional maturity, more unshakable faith in our cause,
more unwavering hope in the future, more sustaining love in our hearts
that all the greatest deeds of derring-do go by the name of action.

Waiting is a mystery - a natural sacrament of life - there is a meaning
hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery
because there is so much waiting in our lives. Everyday is filled with
those little moments of waiting (testing our patience and our nerves,
schooling us in self-control). We wait for meals to be served, for a
letter to arrive, for a friend to call or show up for a date. We wait in
line at cinemas and theaters, concerts and circuses. Our airline
terminals, railway stations and bus depots are great temples of waiting
filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved one
- or wait in sadness to say goodbye and give the last wave of hand. We
wait for springs to come - or autumn - for the rains to begin and stop.
And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait
for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next stop.

We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion. We wait
for success and recognition. We wait to grow up - to reach the stage
where we make our own decisions. We cannot remove this waiting from our
lives. It is a part of the tapestry of living - the fabric in which the
threads are woven to tell the story of our lives. Yet current
philosophies would have us forget the need to wait. "Grab all the gusto
you can get!" So reads one of America's greatest beer ads - get it now!
Instant pleasure, instant transcendence. Do not wait for anything. Life
is short
- eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you will die. And so they
rationalize us into accepting unlicensed and irresponsible freedom -
pre-marital sex and extra marital affairs - they warn against
attachments and commitments - against expecting anything of anybody, or
allowing them to expect anything of us - against dropping any anchors in
the currents of our life that will cause us to hold and wait.

This may be the correct prescription for pleasure - but even that is
fleeting and doubtful - what was it Shakespeare said about the mad
pursuit of pleasure - "Past reason hunted, and once had, past reason
hated."


Not if we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh, soul as
well as heart, we have to learn to wait. For if we never learn to wait,
we will never learn to love someone other than ourselves.

For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a mystery,
brushing by our face everyday like a stray wind of leaf falling from a
tree. Anyone who has loved knows how much waiting goes into it - how
much waiting is important for love to grow, to flourish through a
lifetime. Why is this? Why can we not have it right now what we so
desperately want and need? Why must we wait - two years, three years -
and seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree
should take so long to bear fruit - the seed to flower - carbon to
change to diamond. There is no simple answer - no more than there is to
life's other demands - having to say goodbye to someone you love because
either you or they have made other commitments; or because they have to
grow and find the meaning of their own lives - having yourself to leave
home and loved ones to find your own path - good-byes, like waiting, are
also sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth - the budding, the flowering of love needs
patient waiting. We have to give each other a time to grow. There is no
way we can make someone else truly love us or we them, except through
time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting - of being
present without asking demands and rewards. There is nothing harder to
do than this. It truly tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But
there is life in the gift we give. So lovers wait for each other - until
they can see things the same way - or let each other freely see things
in quite different ways.

There are times when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the
balance of intimacy of the way they were.
They have to wait - in silence - but still present to each other - until
the pain subsides to an ache and then only a memory and the threads of
the tapestry can be woven together again in a single love story. What do
we lose when we refuse to wait; when we try to find shortcuts through
life - when we try to incubate love and rush blindly and foolishly into
a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough to assume?
We lose the hope of truly loving or of being loved.
Think of all the great love stories of history and literature - isn't it
of their very essence that they are filled with this strange but common
mystery - that waiting is part of the substance -the basic fabric
against which the story of that true love is written.
How can we ever find either life or true love if we are too impatient to
wait for it?

Waiting is a good thing only if something is worth waiting for. How will
you know if it's worth it? Gut feel. What if you don't trust your gut?
Pray. You will be enlightened. Trust me. Is it wrong to expect while
waiting? It's not wrong, but it will increase your chances of heartbreak
and disappointment if things don't work out in the end. Is it good to
expect while waiting? It is better to HOPE. What's the difference
between hoping and expecting? HOPING means you're open to either side of
the coin landing though you're more inclined to believe that things will
turn out well.
EXPECTING means you're thinking single-track... which won't do you much
good at all. What's the difference between waiting and expecting?
EXPECTING is waiting for something TO DEFINITELY HAPPEN. WAITING is
staying where you are, but not necessarily expecting something to happen
definitely.

Do you need assurance from someone you're waiting for while you're
waiting? Ideally, yes. But realistically, do you really want assurance
from this person? It's so easy to just point at something and make that
the reason why you're waiting ("Because she said..."
"Because he told me that..."). With WAITING, all you really can rely on
are three things: your gut feel, your heart and mind. Just YOURSELF, not
anyone else.
So should you wait? What does your gut say? How does your heart feel?
What does your mind think? If they're saying different things, keep
asking yourself these three questions (and pray!) until you get a solid
answer.

THEN you'll know if he or she is worth waiting for.
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