I've Been Waiting for You

It always happens that I feel most thoughtful while I’m at work, when I should be doing other things! I’m laughing because I was just thinking, “Man, I wish I could be doing other things during these hours while my brain is most alert!” - and, of course, we’re at work during these hours for that exact reason - because we should be alert at work! Oh well, it makes me laugh at least. Anyway, I was just spending a few minutes of my lunch break reading the notes from the sweet sleep team in Moldova right now & one of the comments stood out. One of the people at the orphanage said ‘we’ve been waiting for you for a year’. Just a simple statement and yet, there is something so powerful there. Can you imagine if someone said that to you? Imagine someone who’s lost their job in this economy & finally finds employment. They go in their first day and upon greeting their new boss, this person meets them with a huge grin, a firm handshake and says ‘We’ve been waiting for YOU! We’re so glad YOU are here!’ Or imagine going off to college, where you were far away from home and didn’t know a soul and you walk into your tiny dorm room & meet your stranger of a roommate who, upon seeing you come in, jumps up, rushes to meet you with a hug and says, ‘YOU’RE HERE! I’ve been waiting for you!’ Of course, being the Twilight fan I am, my brain jumps to these examples too… When Jasper first encounters Alice and her response is ‘I thought you’d never get here!’ Or when Edward and Bella are in the meadow and he says ‘You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you.’ Or, if I may be so bold, imagine if it were Christ. One minute you’re so afraid or in pain or whatever emotion you did or did not expect to feel when death is knocking at your door, and suddenly here you are, and the creator of the universe is there to meet you and says ‘I’ve been waiting for you, I’m so glad you’re here!’

Okay, so maybe that would freak you out [too much invasion into your personal space?! Too much imagination for wherever your theology has you?] but I mean, really, think about that! Maybe for some people, that all sounds prideful - to which I guess I’d say when I think about those examples and think if it were me they were talking to, the right reaction would be something along the lines of ‘no way - you’ve been waiting for me?!’ - an awed reaction, a humble reaction, a ‘no, come on now, its just little old me!’ That’s the reaction I’m thinking of, as opposed to a ‘Yeah, that’s right people - ME! You’re lucky I’m here! Gosh, I should’ve kept you waiting longer just so you’d realize how lucky you are now that I’M here!’ (yeah. THAT reaction creeps me out. Runs shivers down my spine.)

But yeah, all that said, I want to be genuinely feel that way about people and events. I want to see a friend I haven’t seen all day, or all week, or all whenever and when they come through the door, I want to drop what I’m doing, run & greet them because I really am glad they’re there! I want to give them a big hug, or smile, or pat on the back (whatever’s appropriate) such as to communicate this! Which brings me to the one other thing said in these blogs that jarred my memory. For the first year and a half while I lived in Nashville, once a week I would listen to Dave Hunt say, ‘You know I heard it said that a person needs at least 8 meaningful touches [insert: hugs, high fives, etc! not just shake hands with a stranger like you’re shaking hands with a robot!) a day to maintain overall well-being’ (or something along those lines). In the sweet sleep blogs, the person said ‘think about how many personal touches like this you receive each day’ - and how the orphans she’s meeting maybe get 8 of these a month, if they’re lucky.

You hear people say things like hugs are good for your soul. Or, when you give someone a hug and they say I needed that!! You know, I think it just might be true - not just a responsive comment, but a genuine we DO need that! I guess that’s to say - to any of you reading this that live near me & see me regularly (whatever that means!), perhaps more hugs are on the way the next time I see you (and hopefully many times to follow) because we probably both need it!

And when it comes to the countdown to the Uganda trip - I absolutely without a doubt cannot wait ‘til this becomes our story. When it’s our time at the orphanages to pour out all the love, all the care, all the compassion - everything that’s in us, everything God’s created us for that, until this moment, hasn’t even had the platform He’s been waiting for to fill in us, spill out of us -- at the same time as, what I might expect would be from the people we’ll meet, will stream into our lives & infiltrate our everything. Yes, I’ll dream about the more, the ideal, the anomaly because I really do believe we were created for more than everything we know and think and can imagine.