It Doesn't Hurt Us to Wait

During the first few days after our house fire I could not quite pin-point what I was most upset about. Before this, I always thought the most difficult part of a house fire (without injuries) was the loss of “stuff”, but for me the hardest part wasn’t the stuff. The stuff was just stuff.

Two weeks before it happened we had decided we would officially finish being in “remodel” mode. We had a long list of projects still to-do, but we knew it was time to settle in and begin to live life again. One more “big” project and then we would be done with the biggest parts of our remodel.

Like most of us, we have had to wait for many things in our lives. For us, this house represented so many of our dreams finally coming true. We have long desired to have a house in the country, with a little bit of land, the kids and the pets. In many ways, we felt like we had “arrived” somewhere we had been trying to get for the past ten years. Finally.

It was time to rest.

When our house went up in smoke I felt like more was taken from us than our stuff. I felt like I was watching both my future and my past go up in flames. This wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wanted to be in my house. I wanted to be living my dream. I didn’t want to wait anymore.

 I wanted my dream now… not later.

 I felt like we had arrived at the finish line and someone was asking us to start the race back from the beginning. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do it all again. Did I even have it in me? Honestly, at first, I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to know.

I knew that eventually everything would work out. I knew we would regain everything we had lost, but I knew it wouldn’t be today. It was the time that I felt we had lost and the time I felt we had to wait that seemed more than I could bear.

“It doesn’t hurt us to wait.”

I have probably said this a hundred times to my kids. But truthfully, at times, I am telling myself just as much as I am telling them. Why in the world is waiting so damn hard?

Waiting is simply being. Waiting gives us an opportunity to rest. But often times we don’t choose to rest, we choose to become restless. In the world we live in, waiting and resting are under-rated. Many of us don’t know how to rest and we don’t understand the value of it.

It is funny because I was looking forward to a season of rest and now I am in one. Of course, it’s not like I expected it to look.

Welcome to life, Haley, it is full of surprises.

Sure, my home is completely gutted… well… besides the room of ash. But hey, we have been given a wonderful place to live while we wait. We have had every single need met and more. We have been reminded that we have the most amazing people in our lives that have been here to support us through every step. We have each other. We are doing great.

I will now use this time as an opportunity to learn how to wait better and rest deeper. I am reminded again that my happiness in this life has little to do with my desires being fulfilled and everything to do with my willingness to appreciate what I have been given.

Sure, I have lost my house for now. But I’ll get it back.

Let me tell you though, I will not be waiting until then to

“live the dream”.

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