Living in the "right now"

I know I talk about waiting a whole lot here. I think it's because I've found during seasons of waiting that I am the most "unproductive." Honestly waiting can sometimes paralyze me from living the life that I should be living right now, in this moment. Obviously I've talked about waiting for a baby a lot, but now it's waiting for our little adopted kiddo. And for a while it was waiting to move when we were in Chicago- I found it hard to really dive into life there after we got married because I thought for sure we would be moving in a couple years (and then 2 years turned into 5 years...). You see sometimes I don't even know what I'm waiting for, but because I feel like I am waiting for something, I withhold and don't fully ask God daily how He can use me where I am because I'm so consumed with what's next.

And at the very best time, I read a devo the other day on girltalkhome.com (it's a blog run by a pastor's wife and her daughters.) And they had some wonderful things to share relating to this:

"The Christian may walk in darkness, but he need never wander. Ecclesiastes says, "this is the way, walk in it, be joyful, do good." Don't live life waiting for something else, do good now. Remain faithful in what you do know. Ask, what is the duty of my present circumstances? Maybe we aren't where we want to be and there is nothing sinful about wanting our present circumstances to change, but we need to seek how we can serve Christ where we are."

And that is the secret of contentment in waiting. It's the key that stops us from becoming paralyzed - when we do good right where we are, we wake up and discover we are actually living.

And they made a list of potential things we could be doing while we are waiting: showing hospitality, praying, loving kids, loving husband, serving the afflicted, carpooling the neighbors, hosting a family after church, driving a friend to a doctor, washing the sheets, pulling weeds, greeting husband with a smile and kiss.

Some seem simple, yes. Yet during seasons of waiting for me, these small, God honoring and servant tasks go out the window because I can become so focused on me and what God is going to do next in my life, instead of making my life about God, and how I can serve and honor Him right now.

I know this sounds small, but for someone like me who can get stuck in a season of waiting it was such a wonderful reminder that God uses us in all seasons of our life. And really, as I've noticed in my short 29 years of living on this life, we always seem to be waiting for something :)

As always, what's a blog post without pictures? Here's some from when we took Jake to his first hockey game the other week!