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Continuing my What I’m Reading series, here’s one that I initially did NOT want to read.
A year and a half ago, I was at the 2017 Onething conference in Kansas City. I was browsing the bookstore and saw this beautiful matte turquoise cover with chalk-style caligraphy. It was called Seasons of Waiting: Walking by Faith When Dreams are Delayed by Betsy Childs Howard. I picked it up and flipped through it. I thought, “This would be a really great book for… someone else.” I was definitely in a season of waiting (still am) but I thought I had dealt with the emotions and landed in a good place.
That’s when the Holy Spirit gently whispered, “Caitlyn, you need to read this book.”
Um. Okay, that was clear.
I resisted the nudge at first because I thought I didn’t need to read it… or maybe I just didn’t want to give the emotions the opportunity to get stirred up again. Probably mostly the latter.
But He kept saying it, and I know better than to tell Him no and walk away. So I bought the book.
I didn’t read it for a year and a half, mind you. It sat on my shelf, and I knew I needed to read it, but I was a little scared. I really felt like I was doing well! I really didn’t want to become a puddle of emotions over circumstances I couldn’t change. It’s easier just to stuff them down and keep going… and for most of 2018, I was doing really well at that.
This year, the emotions came out of hibernation, and welp, they’re as loud as ever.
I finally broke down and took the book with me on a trip home for my sister’s wedding. I read it in one sitting on the return flight… and yeah, God was right. I needed that.
Really, most or all of us are in some kind of waiting, but this book is written for those who feel the waiting acutely, those with a constant pain, a constant prayer held in tension. The book includes several chapters on general principles of waiting, and then devotes a chapter to each of several different kinds of waiting: waiting for a spouse, a child, a healing, a home, and a prodigal. For me, the chapter about waiting for a spouse was the one I was most eager to learn from.
Chapter one talks about the “school of waiting” in which God does some of His most important work:
“You see, for God, the goal of this school [of waiting] is not that I should learn my lesson so that I don’t have to wait anymore. God wants me to learn how to wait to that I can wait well, even if my waiting continues for the rest of my life… Rather than end my waiting, he wants to bless my waiting.”
(Betsy Childs Howard, Seasons of Waiting, page 14)
As non-encouraging as the phrase “for the rest of my life” may be, it’s true that God hasn’t promised me the thing I’m waiting for. I know that He is good, faithful, and kind, but nowhere does the Bible say “Caitlyn Lutz shall have a husband, amen.” Even as I believe I have received subjective prophetic indications that marriage is in His plan for me, I don’t feel permission to claim that with absolute authority. I certainly don’t have any kind of timeline!
I have to learn how to wait well, whether it’s months, years, or decades.
The thing about this book that so grabbed my heart was the emphasis on how every kind of waiting is a prophetic picture of the story of God, especially of the Bride waiting for the return of the Bridegroom. Of course, this isn’t a new idea to me, but hearing it again so clearly was refreshing and encouraging.
“…God has given you a parable. Each different kind of waiting shines light on a different facet of the gospel story. Only those who have been given eyes to see and ears to hear can perceive the redemptive picture God paints through our waiting.”
(page 22)“We don’t ordinarily know how long we will be waiting… But in that sense, our waiting is an even better parable of what it means to wait for the coming of the Lord.”
(page 21)
Of course, this doesn’t mean that God wants to emotionally torture me in order to make me an example. Of course not! It means that there is a sweetness of encounter with Him in the waiting, as I let my ache for my earthly desires lead me into the ache of longing for Him.
Spiritual hunger is a gift. Longing for Jesus, especially for His return, is something that only the Holy Spirit can stir up in us– and then He meets us in that longing, because we get to fellowship with Him in HIS longing for the exact same thing!
“And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.'”
(Matthew 9:15)
I’ve been waiting for a husband only about a decade. Jesus has been waiting since the original fall in the garden of Eden to marry His Bride, and He’s endured so. much. rejection and heartbreak along the way. There is a precious intimacy reserved for those who are willing to let themselves enter into the longings of Jesus’ heart.
I am so grateful for this book encouraging me to press into Jesus through my waiting. I can’t say that it makes the ache of waiting any less acute, but it does make the waiting richer and more meaningful. I begin to see purpose and glory in the waiting, and that gives me a sense of settledness and peace.
Epilogue: While I was writing this post, I met a woman in the prayer room who was in a different kind of season of waiting. I immediately knew that I had to give her my copy of this book, so I did, and bought it again on Kindle to finish writing the post. I pray it’s as much of a blesisng to her as it was to me!