Daughter Janelle was taken off of bedrest a week ago last Wednesday at 36 weeks.  We all expected that the baby would be born within a few days, at most.  Here it is over a week later and she is still enlarging!  She is indeed enlarged in their waiting.

Eugene Peterson in the passage above takes the "groaning as if in childbirth" picture of creation and fleshes it out, anticipating the emergence of something fuller and better than the present unfinished state of things.

I often get smaller in my waiting.  As I tailgate the vehicle in front of me that is doing only the speed limit, my spirit constricts and there is less room for anything good to come out of me.  Waiting seems to "diminish" me. 

Sometimes it seems people don't learn from their mistakes very easily or quickly and I get impatient - my heart constricts and there is no room for them there.  (Of  course I conveniently forget how slowly I learn, if at all!)  I am diminished in my waiting.

As I accept that the seeds we planted in the garden this week will take time to come up and bear fruit, I feel enlarged.  As I accept that freeing truth comes to people on a timetable other than my own, I can relax and have more room for what is - I am enlarged in my waiting. 

When I give expecting something in return, I am diminished in my waiting.  When I give with no thought of return, I am enlarged in my waiting.  I expect that grace and truth will bear fruit - I just have no idea when!  As I accept that, I grow on the inside.

When we wait for something that has to come in its own time impatiently, we grow smaller on the inside - we have less resources to deal with life.  When we wait for something to come in its own time patiently, we grow larger and have more to give and are able to receive well.

"I need what I want when I want it" is the prescription to misery.  Living that way makes us very small indeed.

"I only want what I want when it is the right time for me to receive it, and the way I will know it is the right time is when it happens without my manipulation" is an attitude that allows for so much good to come into our lives.  It leaves room for lots of surprises.  

We really do have everything we need for now, and we can afford to wait for whatever it is that is to come later.  When we do, our hearts enlarge to take in and be present to whatever is now.

However, Janelle had better have that baby before next week at this time!  :)

"Jesus, you have an incredible ability to wait.  You never seem to need anything in particular to happen at any particular time. You are simply present in your Spirit, allowing us to connect to your Goodness and being patient with us as we learn how to receive that goodness and pass it on to others. Help me to hear more often the invitation to enter your "largeness" by being willing to wait for what cannot yet be.  Amen"