Waiting Well.

Well. It’s Day 149.

The zombies outside are growing restless, due to the lack of fresh blood and physical touch.

Little Jimmy took his disinfected ball and went home weeks ago.

And fur-babies everywhere have grown tired of seeing us all day, every day. Pretty sure my dog pooped in the house TWICE last week as an act of defiance.

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What a world, huh?

A weird, uncertain, scary, sad, overwhelming, _______ (feel free to fill in the blank) world.

For most of us, we are in the midst of week four of self-quarantine. Which may as well be forty weeks (please God, no) because I don’t know what day it is and showers have long since been deemed non-essential.

Everything just seems like it’s taking f o r e v e r.

Do you remember that feeling you got when you were in the final weeks of school? And how you would count down the days until school let out for summer? It’s just like that, except you failed Operations Management (and you still don’t know what Operations Management means) so you had to enroll in summer school.

No? Just me? Got it.

I love waiting.

Said absolutely no one, anywhere, ever.

And yet, here we are.

With the hello of each sunrise and the goodbye of each sunset, we wake up and we do it all over again.

Pause.

Let’s get really real, real quick.

People are dying.

Millions have been laid off and forced to file for unemployment.

Medical professionals are being stretched like never before and grocery store employees have witnessed us at our absolute worst.

There is an invisible virus that will leave very visible marks on our world.

Perspective? I’m working to keep it.

Okay, play.

I’ve never been big on waiting.

I wouldn’t say it’s because I’m impatient necessarily, though sometimes I totes am. Rather, I don’t like waiting because I just get so wound up and anxious about what’s to come.

Nothing highlights this more than waiting for a job interview. There are two sides of me when it comes to interviews.

There’s the dear-God-please-let-this-be-over side, not to be confused with the dear-God-I’m-so-glad-that’s-over side. There is no in between. I mean, have we quickly forgotten about this interview gem? Just the idea of going on an interview is enough to make me sweat through my sweatpants that I haven’t changed in three days.

And then, the day finally arrives.

After weeks of agonizing nerves and ‘what-ifs’, followed by an hour of an elevated heart rate – and a concerning amount of sweat – it’s over.

Well I want this to be over.

I meeeean, enough already! Raise your hand if you are o-v-e-r it.

Ground hog day was cute on the big screen, but not so much as a movie reel of our actual lives.

Some good news?

This will be over.

The when is one of the hardest parts to come to grips with, because that’s still TBD. But it will end.

So I guess that just leaves us to today … and tomorrow … and, for the foreseeable future, now thru April 30th.

So what do we do?

We wait well.

While I may not love interviews, I do my best to come prepared. I research and study the company. I come up with a set of questions to ask, answers to which aren’t easily found in a Google search. I work on perfecting my résumé and I get my references in order.

Now, am I still incredibly nervous and anxious about it? Oh, 100% – I could vomit right now just thinking about it.

But that’s doesn’t mean I’m going to show up empty-handed.

While I wait, hopefully I’m waiting well.

And when you stop and think about it — isn’t that life? Just a series of waiting rooms?

Waiting to go to college.

Waiting to get married.

Waiting to find the perfect job.

It’s just that right now, we are waiting for things even more simplistic than that.

Waiting to leave our homes.

Waiting to hang out in groups larger than 10.

Waiting for some semblance of normalcy.

But while we wait, let’s wait well.

When all of this is said and done, I don’t want to look back and wonder what I did with my time. I don’t want to show up to the interview empty-handed.

I want to take this time to better not only me, but also the people around me.

I want to be used by this.

I want my family and friends to know that they have been on my mind. I want to be a light and an encourager in a world of chaos and fear. I want to be His hands and feet, or at the very least, His elbow. I want the Lord to speak to me, because I – His servant – am listening.

I also want to extend grace to others, and myself, for when life seems just a little too hard and the best I can do brush my teeth and take a walk.

Maybe you do, too?

Because no one will come out of this unaffected. Time, money and lives have already been lost.

There is an invisible virus that will leave very visible marks on our world.

But when the fog lifts and the dust clears, what visible marks will we have left?

If you, like me, find yourself at home on a Thursday that looks and feels a lot like your Monday, then maybe we can try this together?

How are we going to wait well?