Actually, Tom Petty was Wrong

I think I’ve said before that I’m impatient.  And that any time someone tells me I oughtta pray for patience, I curse them.  Half of the time I curse them under my breath.  But mostly to their face.  (Which is awesome for them and not at all awkward for me.)  And if you ever hear me singing the "Be Patient" song to my children, rest assured that is more for my benefit than theirs. 

When folks are struggling with waiting, I usually say this, “I will pray for God to give you patience and also that you will not need it.”  I like this.  It covers all the bases.  It acknowledges that patience is a gift and a sign of love (actually, Scripture tells us that the very first thing Love is is patient…), but it also acknowledges that while we want to be Spiritual about things we also just don’t want to wait.  

Because, as my Pastor said this morning, most of us believe that waiting is for losers. 

Most days I believe that.  And most days I say that Tom Petty was right and that waiting is the hardest part.  In fact, I have a blogpost here that says this very thing and it was written over 4 years ago.

But if you have been a reader since the beginning, you know this blog was born out of the only time I have ever been patient—when I was in the hospital on strict bedrest prior to Henry’s birth.  And really, I wasn’t so much patient as told, “Hey, get out of that bed and you and your kid might die.”  So clearly, God understood that teaching me patience would require the direst of circumstances. And that teaching me patience would also come with a helping of humility.  (Please, for the love of all that is good, please never pray for me to learn these lessons again.  Or, if you believe I should learn some humility, I’d simply ask that you be specific in praying, “Teach Elizabeth humility without having to teach her how to use a bedpan.”)

The sermon this morning at my church was about how we handle grief and suffering.  And that most of us just plain suck at it.  We don’t teach our children how to be sad, and, in fact, as a culture we teach that being sad is unacceptable.  But folks, crap happens that is sad.  People get sick.  Loved ones die. We yearn for a spouse.  We can’t get pregnant.  We can’t stay pregnant.  Spouses leave.  Kids disappoint.  Parents say hurtful things.  And these are just the things that have happened to me and some of my friends in the past week. 

Our Pastor pointed us to David.  Just as he finds out Saul is dead and that he is now King. (II Samuel 1:17-27)  And what does David do as his first royal act?  He freakin gets out his guitar and writes a poem like some beatnik.  Then he decrees that everyone in the land will learn the song so that as a nation they’ll know how to grieve.  He doesn’t try to immediately fix things, he sits with his grief.  His first act as a King is to lament.  So clearly, we are not as faithful Christians supposed to suck up our sadness.  Nor is that the example we are given in Jesus.  He is a King who has tasted betrayal, fought oppression, mourned the death of a loved one, been ridiculed, and died an unjust death.  And then He rose again.  So our sadness is not without hope.  If it is without hope, we should repent of that.  But hear this--Jesus never said, “Don’t cry, it makes you seem unfaithful.  Don't be sad, it makes you seem ungrateful.”  Rather, he said, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Or, to quote the brilliant Jen Hatmaker, “...we still get to cry tears and feel our feelings, folks. Jesus did. And I’m pretty sure he went to heaven when he died.”

So as we enter into a holiday that is all about waiting for a baby and you hear me crying for my child that is waiting too, understand this--my waiting is nothing.  It is not the hardest part.  The fact that there’s a child out there with no Mommy or Daddy to tell him he is loved and that I will be inviting that heartache into my home will be the hardest part.  Parenting will be the hardest part.  Not the waiting.  

*To read more about my awesome pastor’s sermon about lament, go here and check out the accompanying study guide.