Waiting with patience

"A waiting person is a patient person. The word “patience” means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. The moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her womb." Henri Nouwen, The Path of Waiting

How are you doing with hope? Are you able to patiently keep believing that underneath all of what is roiling our broken world are the steadfast promises and forward-moving Kingdom of God? It is challenging to ‘nurture the moment’ when the crises of anti-blackness and police brutality, immigration and civil rights are filling our every screen. Let's think of this waiting and hoping as a mental and spiritual positioning within the big world filled with pain, suffering, joy and beauty of which we're a part, even as we are staying in place. I join you in seeking patience, even as we take actions that the Spirit is prompting to live out the gospel in its fullness!

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation