Hi Friends! Welcome to Episode Eight of the Reaching Hurting Women Podcast: A Contemplative Path of Recovery where we are learning new ways of coping with our daily struggles. My name is Tamara and I will be your host.
With the healing power of the Holy Spirit as our guide, we are integrating the traditional 12 Step Recovery principles with Benedictine Spirituality and other contemplative practices. Each Monday we are discussing our theme of the week.
Today our theme topic is: Waiting 
Waiting is difficult and annoying for anyone. We each have to wait for something almost every day. But with today’s technology we are doing our best to decrease the amount of waiting we have to do. We can place our table reservations for dinner on our phone app instead of waiting in line. We can order clothes online instead of fighting the crowded mall next weekend. We can even order our groceries to be delivered to our front door. While we can shave time off our busy days in some areas, there are other things that we can’t take shortcuts on.
No matter how fancy modern technology gets it will still take nine months for a baby to be born. It still takes 18 years before most children leave home. And God has His own timing for the various seasons of our life and the lessons that must be learned in them. Our challenge is to keep the right heart attitude in the midst of the waiting.
When I was pregnant and expecting any of my three children to be born, I didn’t just sit around and wait for them to be born. I was actively preparing for their arrival. Now granted, everyday wasn’t a planning day, but most of those 280 days were used for learning, planning and preparing for the expected bundle of joy to arrive. I spent hours reading parenting books, books of baby names, choosing and purchasing furniture, decorating the room, taking birthing classes and so on. While the baby was growing and developing in the womb, my husband and I were growing, developing and preparing to be new parents. The waiting time was active.
When we invite guests to our home for a dinner party we don’t wait to prepare everything the minute the guests arrive. We must make our plans and preparations in advance. We choose our menu, purchase the food, clean the house, and then cook the dinner. While waiting for the anticipated day we are still being active.
Waiting on God to answer our prayers can be an active time, too.
Are you waiting for God to send you a spouse? Maybe you can spend time preparing by reading some good relationship books.
Are you waiting for a job promotion? Maybe you can start learning more about the position in advance to save training time.
What are you waiting for? Is there something you can be doing in advance to prepare yourself?
The Bible has much to say about waiting. Our basic job in life is waiting. Let’s face it, we are waiting on something today, that we get tomorrow. The next day we will start waiting for something else completely different. If we can’t figure out how to wait correctly we will have a miserable life.
The book of Psalms says there are three ways to wait:

* Wait Quietly I will wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. ~ Psalm 62:5
* Wait Patiently Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for him to act. ~ Psalm 37:7
* Wait Expectantly I wait expectantly, trusting God to help, for what he has promised. ~ Psalm 105:5

During this time of waiting must check our heart attitude and the words of our mouth. Being careful not to grumble, trusting and believing God; while doing all we can to prepare ourselves for the answer.
Thanks so much for joining me today on the Reaching Hurting Women Podcast: A Contemplative Path of Recovery where we are learning new ways of coping with our daily struggles.
I hope you will take some time to check out the resources on ReachingHurtingWomen.