The Waiting Room
7-18-17
Waiting rooms. They look the same in every country. Regardless of the language drifting around you the room is the same.
Walls stand as witnesses to the countless hearts pounding. Waiting for news. Waiting to read the faces of the staff as they come out the doors. Are they smiling? Or they worried? What does it mean? Waiting for the ones who know to come in and give us answers we so desperately seek. Too often they have none....
We don't wait patiently. Sometimes we sit and think " Hurry up! What could be taking so long? Don't you know we are dying with worry out here?" Sometimes my mind even doubts those behind the door. Do they really know what they are doing? What if they never come out?
We don't wait patiently. Sometimes we sit and think " Hurry up! What could be taking so long? Don't you know we are dying with worry out here?" Sometimes my mind even doubts those behind the door. Do they really know what they are doing? What if they never come out?
Chairs hold bodies in expectation. Some hunched over in resignation. Others with tapping feet and drumming fingers. Anxiety leaking out of all extremities.
Chairs can't hold all. Some pace and stand and shift back and forth. Worry and fear manifested in motion. The carpet shows signs of wear on the preferred pathways of pacing
The table holds a worn bible and a rosary. How many times have worried hands leafed thru those thin pages seeking hope. Comfort. Guidance? How many times have those smooth beads been pressed between fearful palms?
All waiting rooms are the same really. Expectant faces. Waiting for the words that everything is ok. Better.
The stories waiting here. Each person holds a person in their heart. A story in their mind. Each one is the only one for each one. So much pain. Walking in their own shoes no one knows the reality of another yet we all share a commonality. Wishing we weren't here. Wishing they weren't here. Wishing for the "before".
Beside me sits an elderly Hispanic man. Hair seasoned with grey, face lined. He has a distinguished hard working air about him. Clean trimmed fingernails end calloused fingers drumming on the knees of well worn jeans. Head bowed, brown eyes filled with worry. He lifts his eyes expectantly every time the door opens. He is worried. He is.... all of us. Our eyes meet. We do not share the same language yet our hearts connect in understanding. He nods. I smile. We wait.
I am reminded as I sit here in this room of waiting that our lives are really spent in a similar " room". This earth is our waiting room. Filled with anxiety, fear, hoping, worrying. Waiting for those doors to open and those who know who can change things to come thru and tell us everything is going to be ok.
Our lives here on earth are a preamble. An existence without all the information. The other side holds answers. Plans. Understanding. We wait here in the room or torture and our minds conjure up all kinds of imagery. Ask all kinds of questions. Fear all kinds of monsters.
It is not until the doors to this earthy waiting room burst open and the King strides threw arms open certainty and hope on his face. We wait to see that face. The ones who brings the answers to our questions. Why? Why her? Why this? Why didn't You?
His face holds the peace we yearn to see. That everything is going to be ok and we can take that deep breathe and our hearts can beat again. We know that with that entrance we can leave this waiting room and go to the real place. Where we no longer wait for the other shoe to fall.
And so we wait here. In this earthly room of waiting. Until the doors open and heaven is our reality. Please Come soon Jesus.
