While We Wait, We Play the Game

Today I spent time with a friend who is finally in escrow on a house after nearly two years of searching.

Two years of looking. Hoping. Trying. Losing houses. Wondering. Waiting.

And now, finally, the waiting is over.

Her joy reminded me of all the things I have desperately longed for in my own life.

I remember dating for years, longing to find “the one.” And then I did. And the journey continues.

I remember trying for seven years to have children. The longing, the trying, the losses. And then they arrived, the three most extraordinary gifts imaginable. And the journey continues.

And it made me think about the things I am waiting for now…

I’m beginning to realize that there is always something else to long for.

It reminds me of k.d. lang’s insightful lyric: “constant craving has always been.”

A door we want to open.
An answer we want to come.
A dream we want to become real.

The Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Are you heart-sick in the waiting today?

Waiting can be agonizing.

So what do we do while we wait?

We notice the terrain around us and allow ourselves to be distracted by its beauty.

We lean on the companionship of, and draw strength from, the people walking beside us.

We breathe deeply to find calm.

We cry to find relief.

We laugh, learn, and grow.

And if we look closely, we discover something surprising:

The miracle of being alive isn’t the fulfillment of the desire we’ve been pining after.

It’s that we’re alive right now, on a ball in space, seeking after anything at all!

The gift is the experience itself, whatever and whenever the outcome.

That idea reminds me of the book Busting Loose from the Money Game. Ever since I read that book, I’ve realized, although sometimes I forget, that I’m not waiting for something to happen. I’m in the midst of playing the game.

At times, it’s frustrating and frightening. At other times, it flows. Through it all, it’s the anticipation that gives life its thrill.

It’s the breathtaking trajectory filled with moments when we seek and lose, seek and lose, seek and lose, whether we victoriously fulfill a desire or desperately collapse all hope.

If we look, we’ll see that waiting isn’t a flaw in life.

Waiting is an illusion.

Waiting is what we call it when we’re playing the game called life.

So whatever we’re waiting for today, let’s not postpone our wonder and satisfaction until it arrives.

Let’s look around.

Let’s love the people beside us.

Let’s purpose to feel the ground beneath our feet.

Let’s play the game.

Because someday, when desire comes and we’re sitting in the soothing shade of the tree of life, we might look back and realize that the waiting didn’t have to be the lonely space between the important milestones.

It was life itself.

And it might just have been the most amazing game we ever learned to play.