The Guest of Waiting

I imagined having Sarah, the mother of Isaac, over for tea again.

As I walked upstairs I saw a woman with familiar dark hair sitting on the porch. I opened the front screen door and greeted her, “I wasn’t expecting you...” She laughed under her breath like she always does and said “Well I don’t know about you but I’ve always enjoyed the surprise of an unexpected guest.”⁣

“Even the unexpected guest of waiting?” I asked as I sighed and sat next to her. ⁣

She squeezed my knee, leaned shoulder to shoulder and said “Remember Elizabeth, you can’t trust and rush at the same time. Plus the weight of waiting is a lot less than the weight of settling, trust me...” ⁣

I smiled because I knew she meant it... ⁣

I exhaled and thought to myself “There you go lifting my load again...”⁣

I began quietly singing and the wind began to blow, reminding me that sound carries the same way in a valley as it does in a sanctuary. And that the tabernacle of waiting is a holy place of purification, sifting out the ego, the motives, and the entitlement... and that the holy sound of waiting sounds a lot like communing with an old friend on your front porch. ⁣

So we sat there together, shoulder to shoulder, with nowhere else to be and nothing else to do and I began to sing... and I decided to never stop and in each new twist and every new turn the only sound coming from my mouth was a song of trust...⁣