Just you wait

Wait.

It’s a word I must say a dozen times a day.

To the dog, when we’re about to cross a street and I want to make sure the driver of the half-ton pickup bearing down on the intersection sees both us and the stop sign before we step off the curb.

To Teresa, when dinner is almost ready, but she wants a snack now.

To myself, when I want to fly out the door to work, to school, to the store … but everyone else is still finding their coats and shoes.

Wait.

Be patient.

Prepare.

Use the time, if you want and if you can, to get ready. To set the table for dinner, to check to make sure you have your keys and your wallet.

Wait for the first snow of winter, but make sure we know where the snow shovels are and have the snowblower tuned up.

Wait until it’s safe to travel, but make sure everyone is vaccinated, plan and save up the money for a trip, and, yes, daydream about what it will be like.

In a time of instant communication and, often, near-instant gratification, we don’t like to wait. None of us do. It’s become a challenge to buy Christmas gifts for my older two children, because, as young adults, they are working and making money and have relatively few expenses. If there’s something they want, they buy it.

No more waiting for, as I used to tell them, the next gift-giving occasion.

Life’s too short, people say. Do what you want, do it now.

Wait.

Think.

If you really want something, you’ll still want it tomorrow or the next day or next week. If you forget about, how much did you really want it anyway? And if you get what you want, will you still care about it tomorrow? Or will you just want something else?

The last year and a half has felt like a long wait for all of us, a wait that seems to have no end. Things that were put off in 2020 either have been cancelled entirely or have been rescheduled in forms that are unrecognizable. COVID-19 vaccines, which once seemed like they would offer a quick trip back to normalcy, now feel like only a step on a long road to a new place, a new normal, that we haven’t quite figured out yet.

Here we are in the season of Advent, the season when we anticipate the coming of Jesus. Do we really know what that means? How having Jesus present in our world, in our lives, changes things? Changes us?

Wait.

Be prepared.

Have faith, and have hope.