Expiring Dreams

Ever since I was 15 and got my first debit card I would always look at the expiration date on the card and think to myself, “I wonder how different my life will look when this day comes...” As new cards would make their way into my wallet, the question began to change. ⁣

“I wonder if I’ll fall in love by the time this card expires?”⁣

“I wonder if our adoption will be complete by the time this card expires?”⁣

“I wonder if my son will be healed by this date?”

A new card would come and as I cut up the old one fully aware of the absence of yet another dream not being fulfilled, I’d exhale, attempting to not let the disappointment swallow me whole. ⁣

I’m learning expiration dates aren’t a reality in Heaven. And that promises aren’t a transaction but an inheritance. And that the promise isn’t the fulfillment of a dream, but the miracle of his loyal presence, and that it has never left me. I’m learning that sometimes stewarding a miraculous season is actually harder than waiting for it ever was. And I’m learning being on the receiving end of Heaven’s gifts comes with a weight and the only way to efficiently hold it is to hold Him. And I mean really behold Him. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is I wish I could see the look on God’s face when I ask these questions about the expiration dates. I imagine He smiles and says something like, “You just wait. And while you wait, will you sit with me?” Then I’ll find years later when He audaciously gives the gift of miracles, I’d hear Him repeat Himself... “Elizabeth, will you sit with me?”⁣

And maybe that’s the point? In the contending seasons and in the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel seasons, all He ever asks is for us to sit with Him... ⁣Clinging to the only thing ever worth clinging too. ⁣

“And in every season, the highs and the lows, all she ever did was sit with Jesus.”