On our first date, we watched The Emperors New Groove and danced around in the kitchen while making chicken salad. From a can. Canned chicken.
Poor college kids, what can I say?
A few days later, I was leaving campus for break. I wrote a note and slipped it in his mailbox while he was at football practice.
As I gassed up my car, I noticed a text from him, telling me to check my front step before leaving town.
Guess what I found when I went back to my apartment’s front door?
A letter.
I found a letter he had dropped off on his way to practice.
He hadn’t seen mine yet.
It was like our hearts were on the same wavelength. We both wrote each other letters without planning it.
That day, I knew something was different — something steadfast, something patient, something lasting.
In a world that moves fast and skips the lines, we uncovered a beauty in moving slow and standing steadfast on holy middle ground — on waiting on the Lord as he dared us to dance a little longer when we didn’t know the next step forward.
When we ended up having a 14-month engagement, there came a point in the middle of those months we both wondered if waiting until our wedding night it was even worth it.
Now, I can’t shout loud enough to anyone else waiting just how worth it the wait is. Now, I see the beauty of every lesson tucked inside the long days of a hard season.
So, here’s what I want to tell each one of you wondering if whatever God has you waiting on is worth it or if that wait will ever end:
YES, it is worth it. And the wait will end at the very right time.
Our world will give you a thousand reasons why it’s not worth it, and it’s only when you learn to live with a steadfast patience that you can understand just how steadfast God’s love for you actually is.
And I learned that the beauty of waiting is so underrated in our on-demand world. But I dare you to wait on the Lord in our on-demand world, anyway.
Because when we settle every fleeting desire in the moment instead of letting God work and shape our desires over time, we miss what it’s like to have our deepest desire–the one we’re ultimately trying to satisfy with all our instant gratification and destructive decisions–satisfied.
Persevere.
Press on.
Stay the path.
The long way is the narrow way but the narrow way is the life-giving way. And it’s more than worth it.
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.Isaiah 40:31
