Rejoicing in the Waiting

 

The summer is quickly coming to an end. Surprisingly I am actually more excited than nervous or panicked. Often I find the close of a summer somewhat scary for me. I don’t usually look forward to starting up school again. It means moving again, meeting new freshmen and making new friends, and more papers to write before long and all these things tend to sometimes freak me out. Then winter comes and I’ve never been a fan of winter.

But this year I am kind of excited. Not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s the fact that I have a friend getting married at the end of this school year and it gives me something to look forward to at the end. Or maybe it’s the fact I can call myself a senior this year. Or maybe it’s simply because I am starting off part-time instead of full time and so I am not scared to death that I will fail every single one of my classes and have no life at all. Maybe simply knowing that my homework load will be doable makes me eager or at least ready to start another year of school.

This summer has been interesting. Sometimes terribly lonely, but sometimes quite peaceful and enjoyable. Several little adventures with a couple close friends, mostly checking out used bookstores and often coming out with too many books (might I add children’s books because they are indeed the best). After job-hunting for over a month, I have finally started a new job in which I am washing dishes in the kitchen of an assisted living community. I have already fallen in love with some of the residents there. I have enjoyed many quiet hours at a local coffee shop, reading, writing, or talking to various friends. And let’s never forget the many hours of watching Gunsmoke, which has possibly become my favorite western show (Roy Rogers is still my favorite cowboy, but Matt Dillon is definitely my favorite Marshall).

But here I am almost at the close of summer. School starts back in just over a week. And I am really ready for the new beginnings and adventures that this year will bring.

 

Maybe I am also learning to rejoice in the new. New scares me sometimes. I don’t always like the unknown, the mystery. But I am learning to rejoice in the unknown and in the waiting – to let the unknown be until God reveals it in his perfect time, while in the meantime rejoicing in the now. There are far too many pleasures in life if one is willing to seek and see it. I want to be that one who is willing to seek and see the joys of life. There may be new things, new challenges, new friends, unknowns, and mysteries, and there is still more waiting, but always time for rejoicing.

I don’t think I am the only one who does this, but I have often found myself pining for something I do not have – looking beyond the now and into a future that does not exist. But if I spend all my time in an imaginary world, dreaming and pining for what is not. I miss out on so much beauty that is in the moment, I miss out on friendships, on adventures, on sweet conversations.

 

It’s good to dream and to have plans and hopes for the future, but I cannot let the dreaming slay the beauty of now.