Waiting

In my last post, I wrote of how the setting down of our headstone somehow seemed to lift me up.  Its very weight seemed to lighten my load of sorrow and grief.  I have come to realize that headstone was God's way of giving me relief.  It was not so much the stone as it was what it represented in my heart....a love given to me by God that is substantial, weighty, permanent....Bonnie's love for me, mine for her, His for all of us.  I pray that I will always look at that headstone in that way. 

Another time in which He met me and provided what I needed, exactly when I needed Him.

While those of you who know me well know that I have always kept busy, these past two and a half years have taught me the value of 'being still'.  (Psalm 46:10  Be still and know that I am God...)  I've learned to 'wait'.  (Actus 1:4 ...wait for the gift my Father promised".)   Bonnie said that I'd learned patience while waiting in hospital rooms for her tests, procedures and exams to be completed.  Another way in which God was preparing me for these past four months?  

In today's devotional, from the little book Bonnie gave me two years ago, we are told that the disciples were told to "Wait".  "It is not for you to know."  All they are told is to see what GOD does.  I feel like that sometimes.  There was nothing I could do to feel better these past four months.  There was nothing anyone could do or say or read to me that would relieve the grief or the pain or the loneliness.  All I could do was wait to see what God would do.

These past months have found me being more still than I've ever been.  It is not easy sometimes to do so.  I feel called to "do", not just be.  The reality is that God is doing the doing.  I'm doing the being.  I've found myself, as this morning, studying the bible, reading the devotionals for not minutes, but hours.  Hobo woke me at 6:00 this morning.  It is now 9:00.  He is sleeping quietly under the coffee table in front of me while I study, read and write. 

I will begin my doing in due time.  I'll take Hobo for his walk to the cemetery and around our lane.  I'll get the paint brush out and start painting the guest quarters trim later this morning.  But this morning, as with most mornings, I've been able to be still.  I've been waiting. 

This waiting....this being still has allowed my heart to hear what I might have missed in the clatter of doing.   Sometimes God speaks loudest with His soft voice.  He nudges us.  He whispers.  In our being still, in our waiting, He makes us realize that it is not just in thunder that He speaks.  Sometimes it is his quiet voice that is most eloquent.  It is His whisper that is most powerful.