brunch at ann's kitchen

During the last days of my final semester at Cal, my good friend Joann and I went to Ann's Kitchen for brunch. I spent the whole walk down to Telegraph and Dwight raving about how hearty and delicious and satisfying Ann's food was. I knew Joann would appreciate this because I feel like we have a special tacit understanding of how deeply we both cherish the sweet moments of eating - the aroma, the taste, the texture as you chew... While I'm totally guilty of pretending to be too full to finish entire dishes (so as to appear more dainty than I really am) like most girls do, with Joann, I feel no judgment for scarfing down whole portions of food because I know she's thinking of doing the same thing. Anyway, our anticipation grew as we walked down, stood in line, scoped out the menu and ordered our meals.

And then we proceeded to wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. We stood near the counter, and with every order that came up, we raised our eyebrows and looked to see if it was ours. Probably 20 other orders went by, and still no order up. But truly I tell you, Joann and I stood hoping, refusing to learn from the previous let down, that the next one would be ours. Long story short, our food came out, but our total wait time amounted to one hour. 60 minutes of waiting! Hoping and waiting!

We sat there stunned and started listing all the productive things we could have done during that hour. We could have gone home and taken a nap. We could have gone to the library and gotten some reading done (or not). We could have watched two great episodes of Modern Family, or half a movie. So much we could have gained instead of laboring tirelessly over that stupid brunch order. But then it hit me:

True waiting is not simply passing time.

I am learning so much about waiting in these days. The posture with which you wait gives or takes significance from the object being waited for. I find myself waiting on God like I've never before in my short life of following Jesus. And not just waiting for him to show up or make me feel a certain way; he's with me now. But to hope and wait for my God to speak to me, to reveal to me, to move things in my life, to move things in me is my real-time privilege. Waiting for God has taught me to do so while boldly hoping in him and even trusting him to show me what he's doing when there's been no evidence to suggest that he might.

Posture matters. I can choose to wait with yearning or with entitlement. When you wait feeling entitled to that which you're waiting for, your response always will be, "What in the world took you so long? Where have you been?" The object has no worth but to serve you for your gain, and the minute it ceases to serve you, it might as well be dead to you. But when you wait with yearning, the awaited comes and your only expression becomes, "I'm so glad you're here! I'm so glad you're home." And in this, the object inherently has worth, beauty, significance.

In waiting for my God to move, I want to wait like this - with active hoping and hankering. With any good thing he gives me I want to wait like this. And so I wait like this.

And so we waited for an hour for those delicious hash browns and eggs and special apple sauce. And we were so happy when they finally came. So happy like this: