In the Waiting.

Over the course of this year, my entire life has been shaken up more times than I can count.

I feel almost dizzy, my head is spinning still, even in the moments of peace. Residual sea sickness. Throwing up on the pavement.

Regardless, I feel the tiniest sparkle of excitement. The Holy Spirit is speaking to me in whispers, small promises of a future that seems completely terrifying, even ludicrous when I look at what my exhausted brain believes my life should look like.

There is beauty in this uncertainty.

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I saw a vision of the future, and I was there.

This line is printed in messy writing in my diary, scribbled halfway through a church service.

Cautious excitement. That’s what I feel now.

It’s beautiful, terrifying. Maybe even hopeful, a feeling I haven’t held in my heart for a long time.

But I’m not there yet. I’m far from there, I’ve got a long, long way to go, and I don’t believe there should be any shame in admitting that. I have a lot of life junk to sort through, but honestly who doesn’t?

Looking forward is the good part. Getting there, not so much.

I am not good at patience. I want solutions, and I want them now. You know how I talk about writing to me? Well.

Britts, please be patient. Wait.

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I never used to proofread because I just wanted to get the paper submitted and I personally believe there are few things worse than suffering through your own attempts at an academic discussion. This is a terrible way to live your life.

I’ve started proofreading recently. It has been transformative.

Turns out that dragging yourself through thousands of your own words is actually rewarding in the end, despite what it feels like in the moment. My grades have risen, and I’m slightly less likely to want to gouge my own eyes out when I get my marks back.

I’m trying to look at this period of waiting as a similar sort of gift. Perhaps uncomfortable and not exactly the euphoric place I want to be in, but important, maybe moreso than a bright shining moment.

I hate not knowing. I feel claustrophobic, the secrets place their gloved hands over my eyes. I want answers, and I want them yesterday.

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This time is a gift.

Take a breath, manic girl.

You have already heard slight whispers of the future, but they are still a long way off. And that is okay, fantastically okay.

You are planted, not buried.

The darkness is where you are growing, collecting together the pieces of yourself that you need to hold onto, pulling strength and nourishment from the dark ground that surrounds you.

You weren’t built to be buried forever, there is a future waiting for you above the surface, and I promise you, it is beautiful, but for now, you are right where you need to be.

///

Sometimes I run out in the open, promising myself I’m ready, only to be violently pulled back. Like my sleeve got caught on a protruding door handle, I crash backwards. Everything I am scatters all over the floor at my feet and I am left to collect the pieces again while everyone else seems to move forward.

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Rest. Sit and let the growing pains stretch and break you. Bruise as you heal, my wounds are bruising as they heal and I think that is somehow symbolic.

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Everything about the world I grew up in is instant. I get frustrated because I now have to wait an entire week for the next Orphan Black instalment. What do you mean the next episode isn’t starting in fifteen seconds? I don’t have that kind of attention span.

We don’t know how to wait. I don’t know how to wait.

This ancient universe isn’t instant.

Nature takes time. All of life ticks on, each minute with purpose. Ordained, prewritten.

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My current journal is called Undoing.

If I could put this year into a word, it would be that one.

Unraveling. Remaking. Unlearning. Learning. These things take time.

I want instant transformation. I want to be better or gone. No in between.

It was almost easier before I began to listen to the song of the future. I shut my ears to hope, I had nothing to look forward to. Now that is changing, and I am impatient.

I want everything now.

I’m trying to miss out on the waiting, but really I am still a small child. I don’t know that a stove top will burn me, that the streets beyond my front door are dangerous. I want to run out into the road, but I keep getting pulled back.

I am stupidly angry about this sometimes. I kick off in my own quiet ways, argue back, refuse to trust.

The distant world looks like freedom, but I am not ready yet, I must grow in this waiting. A time and a season for everything under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 3, again)

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Waiting requires trust, uncertainty is not a comfortable place to inhabit.

I am not good at trust.

So, when my mind gets tangled and tries to rush me out into my own plans, I must stop. Breath, fold my hands and quietly sit for a moment, the way I was taught as a child. Wait.

God is in the waiting. He is sitting by me, and in my own mislead wisdom I am trying to run off.

Nothing blooms all year, an out of season tree is no less a tree, it is doing exactly what it needs to for that moment in time.

I am learning to wait.

All my love,
b.