It happens like clockwork. Every three weeks my dear husband hits pause on all plans and ensures that he gets a haircut. He leaves home for an hour and springs back looking like an Indian Jason Bourne (Are rose-tinted glasses still allowed after 15 years of marriage? I’m giving myself a pass).

But, then, like much of the world, our city was locked down. And, like much of the world, we found ourselves in life’s waiting room.

My darling husband started looking a lot less like an Indian avatar of Jason Bourne. And a lot more like Tom Hanks in Castaway (yeah, even an unkempt beard made an appearance for a bit). The man’s impossibly thick hair is something that I could have possibly hacked away with my garden shears. But for some inscrutable reason, he didn’t trust me with his tresses. Maybe I shouldn’t have shared those childhood stories about how I scarred my Barbies with mohawks.

Anywhoo, today was the day. Fifty-five days after the lockdown, our city finally okayed the opening of salons and to my husband’s relief, my garden shears can continue to be confined to my rose bushes.

I’ve been checking in with my friends around the world, and life is slowly crawling its way back to what everyone’s calling the “new normal.” My friend in Vienna is enrolling her daughter in a new school today. Another in Hong Kong had her hair colored for the first time in months and says she feels 20 years younger. Others are slowly going back to beaches in Australia and hikes in the US.

But not everyone has emerged from the waiting room.

Many of us still feel trapped. There are still restrictions in place in certain locations. For many, even if restrictions are lifted, it’s simply not safe to leave home – and it won’t be for a long time. There are others of you waiting on a job in a weakening economy, waiting for a child to come home from college abroad, waiting for the doctor to give you the go-ahead for a planned treatment, waiting for customers to show up, waiting for the wedding day that had to be postponed, waiting for a breakthrough that seems to be eternally out of reach.

But, today, know that, as a child of God, your waiting is never wasted.

There is a purpose behind seasons of monotony.

There is a reason behind seasons of obscurity.

There is a plan behind seasons of being shut-in.

Even in your isolation, you are never alone. Our God promises never to abandon us. And He is doing a work in you that may not be immediately obvious but is, without a doubt, eternally significant.

Maybe you’re grappling with a stream of questions: When will this end? What next? How will we handle this? What if this continues?

God has the answers to those questions. He does. Honest. Jeremiah 29:11 says that He knows the plans He has for you and me. But He doesn’t always lay out the blueprint on the drawing board for us to pore over.

Why? Why does He seem to withhold the answers even in desperate times like this?

I love how Jon Bloom of DesiringGod explains this. He says:

God doesn’t always make his will clear because He values our being transformed more than our being informed.

Wow.

Is this season of waiting, is this season of not knowing, is this season of unanswered questions also going to be a season when He transforms you into His likeness?

Today, if you (understandably) feel trapped in your circumstances, I would invite you to read through my devotional “While You Wait” on the YouVersion website. It traces the steps of the prophet Elijah who experienced an extended lockdown, hiding all alone by a brook. He was then instructed to shelter-in-place with a widow and her son who lived in extremely bleak circumstances. It took three years for the restrictions on his life to be lifted. And he emerged from that season of seclusion with an unparalleled boldness (and an amazing pyrotechnic show to go with it).

Through his time of waiting, Elijah recognized God’s magnificent and faithful provision in times of aloneness.  He learned to exercise his faith in the quiet moments. He learned to put his trust in a God who keeps His promises, no matter what the current situation looked like. His waiting was not wasted. 

And I pray that you’ll be encouraged that yours isn’t either.

Join me in reading the devotional “While You Wait” on YouVersion.

 

 

 

 

Photo by Fabian Irsara on Unsplash