The Gift of Hurry up and Wait

Waiting.. it provides the perfect moment....  
Photo credit: My husband

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Hurry up and Wait

“If we learn to enjoy waiting, we don’t have to wait to enjoy.”

Kazuaki Tanahashi

Hurry up and Wait!

That is an interesting phrase.

It means to spend a lot of time waiting.  

Sometimes for days.

It may be hours or minutes. 

But waiting, it’s hard particularly when you are the one wanting and anticipating.

It can be sharp, it can be boring, it can be filled with lots of silence.

Take that time, use those moments to pray and reflect.

Hurry up and wait can be a gift both to your current self and future self. .

Let that time teach you patience

Let that time make you more gracious.

Let the time give you discipline to grow, to gain wisdom and discovery.

You may discover you are not ready for the given situation.

You may discover another path from taking the time. 

So Hurry up and wait! It is a good use of your time. 

I marvel at the fact that once again…. I wrote this over a year ago.  It was like God was writing a note to me (and I hope others)... to wait.  To pray.  I am impatient this morning… I want t be recovered fully… doing the things.  I want my writing to be successful.  My music to be shared, to have a new and better job… and mostly to be back to health.  Mostly, I want to be able to do more for my very loving and helpful family.  When I woke up this morning… and mind you, I was groggy from the new meds of getting my body back in the right direction.  The words that kept coming to my mind were to wait and pray.  Waiting is a teacher.  I am not good at it.  In fact, I am very bad at it.  So much so that I would probably jump farther, do more… and still get it wrong.  There is an art to stopping, praying, and most of all… waiting.  

Hurry up and Wait!  My sons in the Army talk about this often.  Serving in the military gives you a lot of time to sit and ruminate.  So much so that this phrase has web pages dedicated to this very subject. Military Hurry up and Wait is defined as: the long standing tradition of making everyone come in 6 hours before any training event, travel or other military activities.  I have heard this phrase uttered countless times by all 4 of my sons.  But what can waiting really teach us?  First, in a society where we are inundated with information from just about everywhere, particularly with the 24 hour news cycle, waiting can give us time to make a judgment about a given situation.  How many times has something been reported as fact only to have a correction issued within a few hours or days?  Waiting gives us discernment.  Secondly, waiting can give us perspective.  When any given situation arises our first reaction is not always the best reaction.  My brother is a very quiet, well spoken individual.  In his professional position he employs quite a lot of folks.  He has the ability to make decisions that impact the lives of a lot of people.  I asked him how he deals with this on a daily basis.  He told me that if someone comes to him with a difficult situation that needs to be reckoned with in a timely manner… he stops and says, “Give me a moment to answer your question.  I want to pause and ponder the best course of action.”  That single response changed my frame of mind completely simply because our first response is not always the best response particularly if the situation is difficult.  Thirdly, Waiting can teach us empathy.  Sadly empathy has taken a back seat in life these days.  Pausing can help us gain insight into what others are experiencing.  I often find that social media, television, our society in general celebrates narcissism.  There is definitely a need for a correction towards empathy, sympathy and general goodwill to each other.  Finally, hurrying up and waiting gives us fortitude.  The phrase, “Good things come to those who wait.” comes to mind.  Think about some of the rewards the endurance of waiting gives you. Waiting can give you much needed rest.  Waiting can open doors to bigger and better opportunities. Most of all, waiting gives us wisdom.  Wisdom about ourselves and wisdom concerning others.  In our fast paced world, it takes some time occasionally to hurry up and wait.   

Source: wearethemighty.com

The Gift of Doors Open

I sang this today.. with pollen on the throat.. The Impossible Dream... Dream... anticipate those doors opening...

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Doors Open

“Life gets very quiet before all the doors open.  I’m learning that what can feel like loneliness is actually grace.  Rest.  Find your strength.  It will all change soon.” 

J. Lynn

When doors open you are given a new pathway. 

A new vision. 

A new mindset. 

Even a new way to pray.  

Let the door open, even when you are unsure. 

The quiet, the loneliness pave a new way of grace. 

Enjoy the quiet time. 

Enjoy the rest.  

Store up your energy for what is coming next. 

Shore up your mind. 

Just listen and wait. 

Embrace the quiet. 

Embrace the change. 

Count your blessings each and every day. 

 

As I write this, it is still a quiet day around the house.  The kids are off doing military training, etc… 

It is a particularly quiet day at our house.  The trees are up for the holidays but in the words of the old story, “not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”  This is a time of change for a couple of empty nesters.  It is a blessing yet also a time of sadness.  We are waiting for the pitter patter of grandchildren running around the house.  For now we are happy when a college child stops in for a few days.  In fact, the college kids will be here in a few days.  The house will be full of energy, full of feral eaters and full of voices here, there and everywhere.  This gives us a sense of joy and sadness because the house will be quiet again after the holidays.  After reading the quote above this really gave great pause. There is so much in life that we take for granted.  We get easily annoyed.  We reminisce about days of old.  Rather than embrace the quiet and the journey to a new and interesting path.  We are in that period of waiting for kids to finish college and find their significant others and eventually we will have a quiver full of grandchildren invading our house.  Have we become so busy that we cannot handle the down time?  The quiet time?  The time when nothing major is going on?  I confess, I have been guilty of this a lot recently.  I shared in a previous writing that I have been a mom from a very young age.  In the times when teens were going out with friends, marching in the band, going on trips and doing all the various and sundry things that teens do.  I was a mom of a little one and attending school. I was whining to my older brother recently that I need to be busy, to keep myself busy so that life could seem as if it was still at the pace that we had when the house was full of kids.  He looked at me and said, “Enjoy the silence, think of this time as a gift that you were not given when you were a young mother.  Life will get busy again.  So just enjoy this time while you can.”.  Even when a gift is squarely in my life it took someone else to point out just what a wonderful gift was right in plain sight. My brother’s sage words hit home very keenly.  Take the down time, learn something new.  Learn a new song.  Write that story that you have always wanted to write. Spend time outside just enjoying the breeze.  Enjoy the peace until the next spring comes.  Think about Olympians, they train vigorously for years with much discipline to make their sport, their craft the absolute best reflection of their country.  They sprint, they run and they sacrifice a lot to make it to the Olympic Games.  Once that sprint is over what do they do?  They rest.  They support other athletes who are competing.  They slow down a little bit.  Being in the fitness world for over ten years I came into contact with many fitness models.  They would work out 6-8 hours a day in the months leading up to the competition.  Their food was so restricted that it almost looked like punishment.  Very little carbs, no sweets and water.  The day before the competition some of the gals would stop drinking water so they would not be bloated.  Competition day arrived and they showed off their muscles.  After the competition a lot of the girls immediately had a cupcake!  Others had that most important glass of wine.  While others just simply had a good meal and crashed.  They took a good bit of quiet and down time until the next competition.  My husband always says to me that we should ponder life like an Olympian.  We have times of unparalleled discipline and sacrifice.  We go to the competition or the task and compete.  We have an outcome, we take our rest until it is time to take the next sprint.  Those are wise words indeed.  Rest. Find your strength and embrace grace.