The Waiting Room of Life

Have you ever been in a hospital waiting room? When our first grandchild was born last year, our family and friends gathered at the Huntington Hospital around 8:00 a.m. to await the new arrival. The time went slowly as we waited with great anticipation to find out if we had a healthy baby, a boy or a girl, and who he or she would look like.

Our son Bradley updated us many times on how things were progressing. His wife Jeanine was fine and he told us the baby should be born by 2:30 p.m. Well 2:30 came and went, and still no baby. Around 4:30 p.m. our son came out and announced they had a baby girl. She weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces. Her name was Jaden Elizabeth. We were excited and happy to get out of that waiting room and go see Jaden.

At our March Connecting & Bonding Conference in Lexington, Kentucky, one of our speakers Judy Hampton spoke about the waiting room of life. She shared that we all are waiting for something in our lives. Perhaps it’s a call from the doctor’s office, our children to change, finances to improve, or our marriage to get better. It’s easy as Christians to put our lives on cruise control as we go through life. Sometimes when God gets our attention, we find ourselves in a waiting room. While in that waiting room God wants to spend time with us and we get to spend more time with him. There is no clock in this waiting room. It is a time to look back over our lives and recall just how faithful Jesus has been in our lives. Jesus hopes we spend this time renewing our relationship with him as a time of rejuvenation.

I would like to share a few comments from conference attendees on how this session helped them.

• Everything in life is about waiting. God is transforming our lives daily.
• Many times we beg God to remove the very thing that will change our lives.
• Change is good. That is what being in the waiting room is all about.
• Opportunities to share the gospel are present while in the waiting room.
• God wants to change us more than he wants to change our circumstances.

Judy’s session helped me put a frame around trials. I know I will have them, but I know God is working in my life. I just need to trust his faithfulness and realize I am never alone. The waiting room of life is a place where God can do a work in our lives, so there is no need to despair when we find ourselves there.

I am sure many of us at the conference were in the waiting room, but we left encouraged. We were reminded God is faithful to us and he is working in our lives.

If you find yourself waiting, you are not alone. When we were waiting for our grandchild to be born, we were surrounded by lots of family and friends. In the waiting room of life we are surrounded by God’s love.