Waiting on the Lord

SHARON ROCKWELL|CONTRIBUTOR Orchids have always intrigued me, and I have received many as gifts. In high school I wore a beautiful pale pink cymbidium wristlet to the prom. For my wedding bouquet, our florist mounted a pure white cattleya in the center of my bouquet that could be removed and worn as a corsage on my going-away dress. Over the years, my husband has splurged for orchid plants as gifts to celebrate special events. They never lasted long. Only in my retirement have I been able to join an orchid society to learn the intricacies of good orchid plant care. I am convinced that God did some of his best work with orchids. There are more than 35,000 species of orchids and an even greater number of hybrids. The amount of diversity is astonishing. So is the work involved in raising them. Where I live, we can grow a number of orchid species outdoors. I have a large collection now— cattleyas, cymbidiums, dendrobiums and oncidiums, all under shade cloth on my patio. I have learned from my many mistakes to carefully watch my watering, adjusting for temperature, for the amount of light they receive, and supplementing reverse osmosis water with nutrients that optimize growth. Then there are the things to watch for that work against a healthy plant— diseases, viruses, insects, fungi, bacterial infections, all of which plague the plant itself...

Waiting on the Lord2023-03-24T17:48:01+00:00

There’s No Easy Way to Learn Patience

MEGAN HILL|GUEST “Don’t pray for patience,” you’ve probably heard someone say. “God just might take you up on it!” Behind our wry smiles and awkward chuckles is an uncomfortable truth: there is no easy way to learn patience. James also affirms that, for believers, trials are the school of patience. “Count it all joy, my brothers,” he writes, “when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2–3). Under God’s sovereign hand, the testing of our faith is a carefully-chosen curriculum, designed by him to produce steadfastness in our hearts. Although we might endure difficulties hoping our circumstances will change, James reveals that the greatest change happens in us, even while we wait. Various Kinds of Testing The Lord produces this steadfastness through trials of “various kinds,” with each person’s circumstances uniquely intended for her good. A recurring battle with sin is often his means of training us to renounce ungodliness (cf. Titus 2:11–13). Affliction allows us to learn his power made perfect in weakness (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9). Unmet desires may be his way of redirecting our desires toward himself (cf. Ps. 73:25–26)...

There’s No Easy Way to Learn Patience2023-03-24T18:14:26+00:00

Why Waiting is Good News

ASHLEY HALES|GUEST As a family, we needed to see something grow, to learn to care for green and growing things, to get our hands in the dirt. We needed a small starting place: a project that wasn’t about what we could do but what we could watch. So my husband built a custom cedar planter for our patio. Then one Saturday we loaded up our four children into the minivan and headed to the nursery. While my children wanted berry bushes and fruit trees, we settled on things that would fit in our raised bed planter: a few starter vegetables and herbs, tomatoes, celery, cucumber, basil, dill, rosemary, cilantro, and mint. We put in rocks for drainage and fresh soil. We lined up our few small plants and made holes with our shovels. We patted down the earth. My daughter eagerly hoisted the green plastic watering can and watered each plant diligently. We told our children that growing things takes time. We’d learn to care for the plants together; we’d practice patience. Within days, the cucumber vines spilled over the edge and we noticed the popping yellow flowers. A few more days and little cucumbers dotted along the edges of vines. Each morning my daughter would head to the planter, water the vegetables, and run up the stairs excitedly showing me with her fingers how much her cucumber had grown. Some mornings when we discovered the leaves turning colors or a hole in a big green leaf, her joy would be stifled for a minute but then the refrain: “But Mama, we have more cucumbers, still!” We watched and waited, and something grew from nothing. Cucumbers were a miracle and waiting for them was magical. But as we grow older, waiting feels like an inconvenience or affront. We take out our phones when we’re waiting in the grocery store aisle for two minutes. We listen to podcasts on our commute. We leaf through magazines at the doctor’s office. Waiting leaves us with a silence we don’t know what to do with. Impatience with waiting is nothing new. Like the antsy Israelites who built a golden calf because they were tired of waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain, we don’t wait well. Waiting evidences our limited autonomy and knowledge. We are subject to time and to conditions beyond our control....

Why Waiting is Good News2023-03-24T18:16:02+00:00
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