Waiting

It's funny how it goes.

I feel like the Lord has me in a season of waiting. Not a passive thing, where I just sit there, and he's silent. More of an active thing, where he's definitely speaking in various ways, where my emotions are churning and processing is happening in a wild sort of way.

I had a dream last week about shoes. Shoes often speak about transition for me - they've been a symbol of that for much of the last few years. And ever since the dream, I haven't been able to get the following lyric from a gospel song by High Valley out of my head "You don't wear your old shoes on your brand new feet..."

So I'm waiting. Because I think changes are coming again. In more than just the typical transitions that have marked June/July for the last few years. More than just moving, and a game of musical roommates. I'm hoping and praying that a new season is truly coming.

For the first time in a while, as I drove to work this morning, I found myself praying aloud. Making my "requests and petitions known to God." Prayers for myself, and for some I love. Prayers for the changes I feel happening within me. Prayers for blessing - even for those I struggle with (at one point I found myself telling God that I knew what I was asking was a bit of a selfish prayer, but would he translate the words because I genuinely desired to pray blessing from a heart that is right before him.)

As I climbed out of my car at the office, I "heard" again the scripture that goes, "See, I am doing a new thing, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert, and streams in the wasteland."

And my heart lept, just a little, in that cautious way it does after a long and bleak season, when it seems that hope may be presenting itself again. "Yes, Lord, I'm longing for that new season, for a way in the desert and streams where there is only barrenness."

I'm thinking too, about the line from Hosea, where the Lord speaks and says, "I will make the valley of trouble a door of hope."

I'm waiting and looking for doors and new things. And praying the same for many that my heart holds dear.