Olivia's Grace: The wait

Good morning everyone! I hope that this morning is treating everyone well. Today, still going from the same book as last week, our topic is going to be waiting. Once again, I found it to be quite fitting since we are still waiting on baby Duggleby to arrive! :)

"Waiting":

Waiting. It's a very hard word for us as a society to grasp. We usually don't want to wait 10 seconds for an application to download on our phone, let alone days, weeks, months or years for circumstances to change in our lives. The stillness of waiting in today's culture can be very foreign to our souls. I think about the movie "Pride and Prejudice" (my all time favorite!), where the girls are not allowed to work, and simply have the responsibility of maintaining a certain presence about themselves. They are required to maintain the house, and keep up in arts, such as reading, writing, and music. Can you imagine? I think I would be bored out of my mind! And yet, I am sure that there was also a stillness about them that does not rest in our society today. Even today, I can feel the pull and weight of the wait on my heart as I long to meet this precious life growing inside of me. There is an anxious spirit that wells up inside of me, as the world says, "where is she?!, Isn't it time?". However, she has different plans. And much like our lives, we spend much of our time trying to fill the wait with other attentions, instead of being still and resting in our current moment of time. I believe that in these periods of waiting in our lives, from the little moments, like the stir in our stomachs as we wait anxiously to make a speech in front of an audience, to the big moments, when we are waiting for our perfect match to come into our lives, we come to understand more of who we are. It is in these moments when we are able to hear the true heartbeat of our hearts, we are able to see the details around us, able to pick up on the influence and meaning of our lives. It is in the stillness of waiting that our eyes are able to see more of the truth of the world around us. Maybe our eyes are opened to the beautiful flowers planted at the front of our office space we pass every morning? Or maybe they are opened to the person sitting right beside us, in need of a helping hand? You see, I believe waiting forces us to surrender to our own will and timetable on life and submit to living for something much greater than ourselves; living for others. We are forced to move outside of ourselves and simply wait in due time for our answer to come. So, as I wait yet another day to meet my precious child, may my eyes too be opened to more of the world around me. May I become less consumed in myself, and more consumed in the life of others. May I learn to value stillness and soak in each precious moment of life that I have to live and make it count for something amazing! Even through the unrest, may there always be beauty in the wait.

Here are some pics I took this week to relate with the symbolism of waiting.