I’m Just Like Bergen
Sometime in the less-than-distant past, this event occurred at our home.
It was bed time.
Some friends were over.
Bergen wanted Nate to fly him to bed like a superhero. (Because Nate can do that, you know.)
But Nate was busy.
So Bergen began to wait.
Impatiently.
He cried out Nate’s name.
Loudly.
Repetitively.
Nate told Bergen he would be right there in just a minute.
But Bergen didn’t care.
He just kept crying out in a sobbing voice, “Naaaay-Aaaate”.
Over and over.
Increasing in volume each time.
Nate was not ignoring Bergen.
He had every intention of entering the living room, scooping Bergen up Superman-style, and making a grand exit to the bed.
Bergen didn’t need to cry.
He didn’t need to scream.
He didn’t need to do anything.
He just needed to wait.
To sit still.
His turn was coming.
The Superman lift was approaching.
And the funny thing is, Nate, being the kind pal that he is, planned to meet Bergen’s request.
Bergen was going to head to bed lifted high in Nate’s arms.
Whether he sat patiently
or bellowed loudly.
The end result was the same.
Crying didn’t get Nate there more quickly.
It just made Berg unhappy and miserable while he waited.
(And bothered everyone around him as well.)
I’m pretty sure that for most of our lives we sound a lot like Bergen did that night.
I know I do.
We are just screaming for the next thing, the good thing, the end we desire.
Just shouting off and crying out and making ourselves unhappy and damaging the experience of all those around us.
Being miserable
while we wait.
It’s what we do.
Making others miserable
while we wait.
I’ve been guilty.
And the funny thing is, God has every intention of meeting our need.
He’s at the end.
He is the end.
The truth is
that end is going to happen
regardless of the manner in which we choose to wait.
Regardless of how we sit in our chair.
Regardless of our screaming.
I can be just like Bergen was that night.
But I don’t want to be.
I don’t want to sit
crying and screaming
waiting for the next thing.
I’d like my waiting to be a tad more patient, to look a lot more gracious, to be a bit more proactive.
Because maybe it really is
the waiting
that defines us anyway.
16 Comments
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Katie
Hi Lacey. We've never met but I found your blog and am loving it. This is the second post to make me cry so I figured I should let you know that the Spirit has convicted and encouraged me through your words. So thanks:)
LaceyKeigley
Thank you.
That really means a lot and I appreciate you taking the time to let me know.
Marie from Germany
dear lacey, i have just been glancing over your blog and discovered this post that i had missed to read for some reason…. and it kind of gives me hope and strength in one of the hardest times of my life so far. i am waiting for a call, some word, a sign …. and hoping for it to not meeting all my fears but for a little miracle, for positive progress and that the one person i am waiting for will see clear, with love and hope himself…
thank you again. i love this blog of yours. your daily words of hope. on happy days and days full of doubt and struggle.
and i know, again, why i always come back to read.
love
marie
LaceyKeigley
Oh Marie,
You are so kind.
I\’d love to catch up on some of these details of your days right now.
Love you.
Laurissa
This is just what I needed to read today. Thank you. Its SO hard to wait…but the best part is the waiting, the anticipating the good that God will bring about.
Gretchen
Thanks………definitely needed that!!! Tears….tears……tears. Thanks!!!! 🙂
Stacy Finnigan
Lacey.
One day we will have an entire conversation. One day. Soon. Since I'm moving down there. Soon.
I was talking over the summer to…another staffer…(I forgot who)…about how all through the New Testament Epistles, there's talk about 'suffering.'
To suffer: to experience distress or pain; to endure; or both
To wait is kind of the same thing.
LaceyKeigley
Stacy.
I anxiously await the day we have a full conversation.
I want to know the details of you moving down here.
And I love that the definition of \”suffer\” is both distress and endurance.
Both.
I think that\’s just like waiting.
Tiffany
Great post, Lacey. I hate it when kids remind me of myself and my own sin.
LaceyKeigley
I know.
Me too.
And it seems that I have six steady examples all day long.
Melissa Ann
I'm not sure whether to say Amen or Ouch… 😉
nikkie
oh, the waiting.
love this post.
thank you.
Mandy
Convicting
Thank you
Amanda
That darn waiting is the hardest part!
Cindy
Awesome! I have spent a long time striving to "….be still and know…." So often I ask to hear His voice and yet I don't quiet down enough to actually listen when He speaks.