Sabbath Rest: On Waiting

 Few things in life work so consistently well in teaching the discipline of waiting like gardening.  Today, I read a devotional on waiting as an element of prayer.  My past week had elements of waiting that made this particular reading a rich one.  I thought it a good one for sharing:

Is waiting the worst thing about the life of prayer?
Sometimes it is both the worst and the best.

Say we have put in our request for something and the answer is slow.  We suspect we have come up against celestial bureaucracy.  Anyhow we have to wait. 

We hate to admit that we are deepened by this waiting.  Waiting makes us strong.  We thought we were frivolous, impatient people, bent on self-gratification.  Slowly, we grasp what we are made of.  Patience sharpens and refines us.  We endure.  We live on a deeper level.

 We serve by waiting, as Milton says of the angels.  We are glad of our parts in the chorus, spear-carriers.  "They also serve who only stand and wait."  (John Milton, sonnet "On His Blindness.")
--Emilie Griffin's Doors into Prayer

May the waiting in all our prayers be so fruitful.