How to Feel More Content in the Middle of Waiting

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Sometimes life just doesn’t seem fair—how we have to wait so long for something that others get seemingly right away—how some of the things we are waiting for never come to fruition or look the way we expected or satisfy us the way we assumed they would. Sometimes our hearts are far from content, and we push back against the waiting as if we can hurry up the process, push away the gift as if it’s a pill to swallow and not a gain.

In the middle of waiting our hearts can wander and our thoughts can wonder and we can lose the sound of His whispers that He is still here, still for us, still good, still in control.

How do our souls find rest in the very middle of the stretched-out seasons?

I feel the weight of the question.

So let’s unpack this some more—how in the middle of the waiting our hearts can still be content.

Perhaps contentment has its hands on the wheel, rather than being the back-seat-driver. Perhaps contentment chooses first, overrides circumstance, remains when all else falls apart.

Perhaps nothing and no one can dismantle contentment unless we choose to let it go.

To borrow the wisdom of Elizabeth Elliot,

Contentment does not lie in despising what you don’t have; contentment lies in gratitude for what you do have. And contentment lies in receiving these things as gifts from God, knowing that, if they are gifts, the One who gave them can also take them away…We can hold these things, as it were, on an open palm, ‘Here, Lord, thank You, and any time You want to take them away, they’re Yours.’  

This open-handed way of living, perhaps it contains a key to being more content in even the long-waiting seasons. Give thanks for all—the given and the taken—and hold tight to God but hold everything else in an unclenched hand.

Openness

Open. I chose it once for my word-of-the-year. It taught me to show up, to let the real me show, to go first in embracing humility and vulnerability. It taught me to ask others when I can’t do something alone and to say no when it was not my yes to give. It taught me to let others into the ways I am still in-process, still learning to lean in and listen and let the voice of the Holy Spirit be my guide.

The lock screen of your phone is a good place to put your word-of-the-year, I discovered. Because every time I was tempted to pull back, disengage, present only the polished and pretty parts of my life, one reach for my phone and I was reminded how fear shuts others out but also me inside.

It was a hard and holy cultivating, that full year. And then I did not want to let open go, so I carry it with me still, no longer on my lock screen, but in the habits I’m nurturing.

It’s freeing to be real, to really, truly embrace open.

Because when I close myself off to others, I begin to close myself also off to God, and when I hold God at a distance, I shy away from showing the real me to others too.

But the opposite is also true. Lean into openness in one area and it leaks into other areas.  I practice posturing my heart like an open door, welcoming my neighbors into my heart, my home, and my life, and I don’t realize it right away, but I’ve grown more content.

I trust more. Risk more. Give thanks for what I see now as good and what I know in my heart will be good though my eyes can’t see how yet.

The gift of waiting

Perhaps the waiting itself can be a gift, and this palms-up, fingers-open way of living lets me embrace it as such.

I hold tight to what I know to be true—His constant presence and goodness splashed all over everything—and I find grace to be content as all else comes and goes.

When I know He will never leave, it’s easier to leave my worries in His hands.

And the things my heart longs for but my hands have yet to hold—I see how the waiting makes me trust the goodness of the Giver all the more. Because He owes me nothing yet has given me everything—and how can I not choose contentment, not choose to praise Him nevertheless.

Nevertheless, how this word is carving praise into my soul. How it’s growing my intention to choose my lens: gratitude or ingratitude—it’s mine to choose, and I’m spending this year choosing to tell Him “thank you” nevertheless.

Nevertheless determines the posture of my heart as I hold all in open hands. It says “I’ll praise You today, and I’ll praise You tomorrow, and I’ll praise You if and when what’s in my hands today is no longer there tomorrow.” And this soft breaking, it lets contentment fill the fissures and hope heal the fractures.

And I find myself with more, even if it looks like less to the world.

Openness and praise grow contentment

Embrace openness in the ordinary yet sacred moments of my life and watch it grow contentment. This letting go and letting Him in—it brings deep-seated peace that grounds me in the waiting.

And the choice to say “thank you,” to see the given and the taken and the still-coming as gifts, this too grows peace within me. And out of the calm of peace bubbles the spring of joy.

Is it true, that even in the soul-wrestlings of the waiting seasons, I can not only find contentment, but also joy?!

The beloved Ann Voskamp contemplates in One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are,

I wonder too . . . if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become the places to see.

To see through to God.

That that which tears open our soul, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To. Him. To the God whom we endless crave.

Maybe so.

When I see through to God, see through the mess and the hard and the long of waiting to the God I choose to praise nevertheless, I see how all is right when He is right next to me. And He always is. Here. Near. Next to me.

And when I see Him, it stills my heart and wells my joy. Because He is both. Both peace and joy. He never runs out of either.

So when these waiting seasons stretch out so very long, friends, we run to Him. He is the Answer. The Peace. The Joy. And with Him, no matter what swirls or lingers all around us, our grateful hearts can rest in contentment.

Would you join me in this prayer, dear one?

Jesus, when we are weary from waiting, would You hold our clenched fists in Your open palms and teach us how to open ours? We choose You. We choose to praise You even in the moments we can’t see the good, see You near. And as we praise You in the presence of others, we scatter seeds of faith and hope. Would You water those seeds, nurture their growth? Thank you that You are near, and as we learn it for ourselves, we are learning too how to share You with those all around us. In Your precious and holy name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.

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