How Do You Wait?

The barren one is now in her sixth month. 

Not one promise from God is empty of power 

for nothing is impossible with God.

Luke 1: 37 The Passion Translation

I've never thought that much about Elizabeth. Gabriel speaks here to Mary - the mother-to-be of none other than GOD Himself! Who has a thought to spare for this side character in THE story of divine visitation? God come to earth. Wow. Talk about a headline for the New York Times! Why does Gabriel even mention Elizabeth?

I don't know, but I'm glad he did. I read these verses with a different perspective this morning. 

"The barren one." Elizabeth is now past childbearing years. It's not a secret. Everyone in her community knows she's barren (it's obvious). The life part of her life is over. There is no hope for her to have her dream - a life like her friends have. She's different from her family, her neighbors. In a time when children are everything, she has nothing. 

And now it's too late.  

The hopelessness and pain. The weight of her sorrow. The sense of a worthless life. When a woman's sole purpose was to bear children . . .

What did Elizabeth do all those years of waiting, of hoping? How many tears of anguish did she shed? Did she blame Zacharias? Did she yell out her pain at the God in whom she believed?

Had she stopped believing?

Or did she wait well, not faltering in her faith?

I've had seasons of barrenness in my life - both the childbearing kind and of a more figurative nature. I find that I'm a very patient person - as long as my waiting isn't for something for which I desperately long.

I'm in what feels like a barren season now. A waiting season. I regularly remind God of my age. It doesn't seem to phase Him. I'm that person in the waiting room who paces, who is obviously agitated, who keeps bugging the receptionist. "What is taking so long?!" 

I can't make myself be more patient. My efforts yield temporary results.

But I can take some slow deep breaths and surrender. Open my hands and my heart.

And trust. 

There's a bigger picture here. And it's possible that, like Elizabeth, I'm not the main character in the story. 

How do you wait? Is it time to take some deep breaths and surrender to Someone who knows the whole story?