Waiting Patiently

 

Having a busy September and October, I take a huge breath to focus on my writing again. The “Hopefully Devoted” group is a great blessing and full of encouragement. We’ve now reached the stage where we are placing newly interested people on a waiting list, while the group settles having had five new members in a short time. The blog is from my co-leader of that group, Linda Ottewell, who before retirement was an editor at Kevin Mayhew.

Linda Ottewell and Rosalie Weller

co-leaders of "Hopefully Devoted"

 

Waiting patiently

 

Friends tell me that I come across as calm and patient but today, as I compose this blog, it’s a struggle to wait patiently for two separate phone calls. The first is an update on my car’s performance in its MOT exam. (Last year it failed spectacularly and the bill was eye-watering.) The second is to inform me exactly when a plumber will arrive to fix what I hope is a relatively small problem with the downstairs toilet. Hardly headline-grabbing events but the stuff of ordinary, everyday life.

 

I aspire to one of my favourite verses from the Psalms: ‘Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him’ (37:7). I’m trying to spend more time sitting and waiting quietly, open and responsive, giving God my full attention. There have been seasons in my Christian life when meditative/contemplative prayer was more important. Perhaps it’s time for this spiritual discipline to come to the fore again.

 

Although I’m now retired from paid employment, a familiar cliché is proving true, especially in these 24/7, post-Covid days. I find myself to be as busy now as I was when still working, with grandmother duties, church commitments, the responsibility of being a school governor . . . And so it goes on. I suspect that other cliché, the one involving ‘time’s winged-chariot’, has a lot to do with my efforts to keep busy and to use each and every day profitably.

 

Not long ago I was part of a small group at church, praying for the Sunday service that was about to begin. An image popped into my head of a hamster on its wheel, spending its time and energy turning, yet going nowhere. I didn’t even consider applying the picture to myself at that point. Having looked around the others I confidently concluded exactly who needed to climb free of that hamster-wheel whirl of activity and experience Sabbath rest more frequently.

 

To employ yet another cliché (with apologies), it isn’t rocket science to realise that the more I sit quietly, in an attitude of listening prayer, unhurried and not clock-watching, the more often creative thoughts and ideas can bubble to the surface. These are my ‘sparky thoughts’ (more properly termed theological reflections?) when it’s essential to keep pen and paper handy to capture and explore them further. Picture me scribbling away contentedly, energised and totally absorbed; precious moments when I let my mind wander freely but fully focused. For my mind is all too often busy and distracted, flitting from one thing to another and in danger of missing God’s ‘still small voice of calm’.

 

O Sabbath rest by Galilee,

O calm of hills above,

where Jesus knelt to share with thee

the silence of eternity,

interpreted by love.