Wait......

I am not a waiter....I think that's correct, probably not but that's what it is now! And I don't mean like a waiter in a restaurant, I mean a waiter! Someone who can wait in long lines for tickets, they are waiters; people who can wait for something to happen, they are waiters; me not so much a waiter. I usually want it to happen -like yesterday - and as time rises to whatever it happens to be I'm waiting for...I get antsier and antsier.  For those of you who know me, you are probably thinking...'what you?! no!' I know a revelation huh?! :) Soooo for those of you who do know me it will come as no surprise that standing in my pasture are two horses that can not wait either. Both are great horses but neither can just wait..of which someone was kind enough to point out was my fault because I am not calm and tranquil...thank you for that revelation! Horses, as many of you know, are a great part of my life, they were a salvation from a history that was less then favorable and less than wanting. And, most of you who know horses also know that they are waiters in the sense that I am not.  Knowing this, I googled 'horses standing in the rain' for pictures, and I was surprised to find horses running in the rain, playing in the rain, etc. Why a surprise? Because horses don't do that; they will move forward under saddle in the rain, but horses in a pasture or in the wild will stand, butts to the wind driven rain, heads down until the rain passes....they wait.

Usually my horses can't wait to get to go wherever it is so that they can get back to their pasture...my older mare, Raychel, has been my job mare, my endurance partner for a long time and she loves to go and go for a long time....she's great at it and generally she can not wait to go down the trail as the out timer calls seconds to "trail open". It's almost as tho she can completely understand what is being said, when in reality Raychel can tell by me, by my hands, my body language, my anticipation to not be able to wait. She is anticipating my every move, motion, direction, and she responds to it almost on the moment, ok sometimes before the moment. I, however, do not have someone on my back telling me to 'hold on' and 'wait' for me to tell you when to do something....or do I? Romans 8:25 "We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become and the more joyful our expectancy." (MSG) "But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." (NIV) Ok so my analogy of someone on my back telling me to 'wait' was a very poor description but it kind of feels that way.....that God is telling me to wait for Him, and I am constantly jigging in place, balling up by body to burst away in anticipation for .....what! I am not a good waiter, I am not a good  stand in place and hold on kind of person, so standing around does not sit well with me. Come on you're probably exactly the same way, you're just not willing to admit it. Why? Probably because you don't know what you are waiting for yet, or you haven't had a hope so large that you are ready for it to come to fruition so you can see it, or maybe because you are so grown in Christ that waiting is just something you do well....I hope one day to be that way...or do I? Or am I suppose to be that way? Every scripture that tells someone or me to wait, I always think what great disciples and people of Christ...and then there's always one or two who are not waiters, they want it now! Like right now! Maybe I'm one of those people, a non-waiter.

I'm not by any means ready to put my head down in the storm and wait it to pass, the storm that I am in is a struggle of spirit and mind, it is a storm that I can't stand to wait out. Even tho He says to wait patiently for what I hope for...I just can't do it. Unlike a horse, I can't stand in the storm with my back to it, head down, and wait for it to pass and provide green grass...that's really what they are waiting for ;), the grass.  Have I tried? Well not really, but every time an attempt is made, my body stays in motion....I'm not ready to just be a waiter and I don't know that I'm suppose to be a waiter. Am I waiting for confirmation on that, yes. Every part of my being is going, my mind, my body, my spirit, and waiting becomes a hindrance and brings with it depression.  Unlike my wise horses, who stop in the rain, turn away from its force and waits it out, I run into it....never to my avail and usually to my demise and yet I do it. I hope to be a waiter one day, a waiter for what I hope for, a waiter for the things that should be what I'm striving toward, a waiter on Christ...I just don't think that I'm there, not yet.

Barefoot - No Shoes Required

If you have never walked barefoot you don't know what you are missing! When I first met my husband, he never walked anywhere without shoes on of some sort...his reasoning, his feet were soft and it hurt to walk on the ground. Since then, some 20+ years ago, I catch him walking around outside quite often without shoes. Then, on the other spectrum, we have a friend we call the 'barefoot carpenter' - I think the nickname explains it all. Me, I have lived barefoot, especially growing up in Northern Michigan, once spring hit the shoes were gon. Since I've lived in North Carolina, I love to go to the beach and walk barefoot all over the place, and recently I have been walking down my drive way barefoot-mostly in an attempt to get a natural pedicure, but finding that it helped my back from sitting all day in an office chair. But, like most

things, walking barefoot is not something that is easy to do and generally I don't have the ability to be ' barefoot' all day in our day to day life. So like most things, my feet become tender, and when I walk barefoot, I cringe, wince, and tiptoe to where I'm going. I'm sure you are the same way, tender footed when you first take your shoes off in the spring.

Sometime ago, I started taking my shoes off when I was in church. Standing in place during worship one day, probably about a year ago, I took my shoes off and slid them under the chair in front of me. Standing barefoot on the carpeted concrete floor, I remembered that every time Kaleb played music in band or stood in the worship center, he stood barefoot, and I smiled. Since that day, when I go to church, I take my shoes off and stand barefoot, of course its not a big deal because the floor is carpeted and clean and soft so there's little wincing, a easy place to be barefoot - or not. This week, for the first time in more than 6 months, I attended church, without delay when I sat down beside Jennifer, I took my shoes off-and my toes rolled up underneath my feet..almost a wince. I didn't realize I did this until, in the middle of the message, the title of this blog came to my mind. This is not the first time that I've had this title reach my thoughts but this time I realized that I had stood with my feet curled up as though they were tender and I thought 'why would I do that?' And as quick as the thought crossed my mind it disappeared...until we were listening to a song as part of the message and I realized that my feet were tender because I was starting to walk on them again in a place that I have purposely avoided, a place that I chose not to walk, and like in the spring on the not yet soft ground, my feet were tender. This is going to be a stretch of an analogy to reach...but here it goes. My feet are not to unlike my life, I have worn shoes all winter because of the cold and to avoid hurt to my feet, I've protected them..I've done the same to my life, both spiritual and personal, I've put up walls, barriers, put "shoes" on, to protect myself. And like my feet, my spiritual life and personal life has become tender to issues, tender when I am 'forced' or 'expected' to address and "walk" somewhere without protection, and I wince. I was asked to do that this week, just walk into something that I have avoided and protected my heart and life from, and I winced.

2 Cor 12: 7-10 "....there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the lord to take it away from me. But he said to me "My grace is enough, it is all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness"."

I have asked countless times for God to work for me and take the things in my life that are thorns in my life away, that I couldn't take the pressure, the stress, the heartache, on any longer......and it is at tho nothing is happening; now in all fairness, I am not giving to God any part of my life through these issues. So I probably shouldn't 'get' any relief or rest from Him. I am far from Paul who was doing exactly what he was suppose to be doing and still received a thorn in his side, so my expectations shouldn't be so high. But, I still got the same answer from God as Paul. Mine didn't come as clearly, wasn't words that just came from above and said this is the deal, but they were the same words. I am beginning, or attempting once again to start a journey, and I really truly don't want to go because I am going barefoot, and He said to me "you need nothing on your feet on this journey, all you need is Me"...My grace is enough. This journey that I am not ready for but greatly missing in my life, is not easy will not be easy and is a journey I am avoiding purposely. Now that I know that I have to go openly into it, unguarded and unready, barefoot, I am hesitant. Afraid of the wincing that I will experience, the tenderness of my soul to go in the directly of the hard ground that is in front of me.  My grace is enough.......