The power of YET.

The last 3 months...twelve weeks...84 days...

...have been some of the most challenging, frustrating, creative, joyful, disappointing, humbling months, weeks, days EVER. How so many emotions can vie for first place at the same exact time within the human heart is almost inexplicable.

And yet...here is where I have been.

The pieces of what I’m trying to force together sit in a hazy distance or under layers of cobwebs. I can’t get close enough to make out the picture it’s supposed to be, or I can’t excavate the tender parts that pull it all together. I want to, but I can’t.

On the other hand, every so often - even if only fleeting - the fog lifts and I’m able to see how the pieces fit together. Or how I want them to fit. I see the vision, and I do the work to make what wants to be become what is.

These last several months I’ve had so much vision and so much interest to work on brand new things. Yet my heart and talents have been so needed elsewhere. So instead I collected tidbits here and there, penciling them into the margins of my schedule and life. But in several barely-there whispers, God began to imprint on my heart that now was not the right time to do anything else with it.

Yet.

Someone advised: “Ya know, sometimes the Lord simply suggests things rather than tells you you should or shouldn’t do it.”

Yes. That was it exactly. I could see and feel how the Lord suggested I set other things that I deemed important in the moment aside for the time being. 

I was sad, disappointed and if I’m being honest, downright scared about that. I mean, what if these things ended up leaving me altogether? I'm fifty now, for crying out loud. What if I lose the energy for what it is I want? What if I run out of time and I don't complete every dream, every vision I can so clearly see today? What if? What if? What if?

When I knew beyond a doubt that waiting was what I needed to do, I cried my eyes out. Waiting is so hard. 

This time was by far the hardest. After all, with all of the challenges and changes, surprises and shocks that my home and family had been hit with in the past months, this spark of inspiration wasn't content to lay low or dormant. It had taken root on the inside of me, and I was ready  - desperate - to produce it on the outside. I had time and motivation to work on it as well as the passion and inspiration.

Yet I wasn’t supposed to.

Sometimes I assume the season of today is the season of forever. When this happens, urgency and panic want to be my companions. The best thing I can do is realize that my right now no is likely not a forever no but a temporary not yet.

It's frustrating when you can’t make what you want to be become what is, especially it makes you feel good when all else around you seems to be crumbling. But even as I think about what it is I want to create or do, God is most concerned about the heart of one He created: Me. 

You.

Glorious, capable you. If like me you sense this undeniable nudge to wait on something, have courage. Have courage to move through this season with a relaxed sense of anticipation for what God’s doing in you and through you. 

Today's not yet just means He's still doing a work. When the time comes, it will be bigger, better, sweeter, and more joyous because it was done in His time. Embrace it.

Embrace the not yets in your life.