How do you handle waiting? With impatience, anger, frustration? Or have you seen the benefits in waiting so approach it with an attitude of expectancy and learning.
Like most life challenges, learning to wait well is a fine art that requires discipline, skill, and patience. If you’re like me, you don’t want to slow down to employ any of those. You just want to reignite forward motion and get on with your life, minus the waiting. But let’s consider the impact of creating a beautiful, positive picture of waiting.
The Blank Canvas
Any work of art begins with a blank canvas. For writers, it’s blank paper or a white computer screen. For needlework artists, it’s an empty quilt rack or uncut fabric. The possibilities are endless, yet you must wait for the inspiration that gives you the courage to start and see the project through to completion.
Waiting is similar. The length of the wait is undetermined and the details of waiting obscured. You enter a season of waiting as you would an empty room with white walls, floor, and ceiling. What you make of your time of waiting is determined by attitude, emotions, perception, and wisdom. You can choose to fill your waiting canvas with trust and peace or paint a picture filled with frustration, anger, and impatience.
The Color Scheme
Abstract artists sometimes choose a color scheme first. They select hues that compliment each other, but also throw in pops of an unrelated color for contrast.
How will you color your time of waiting? Will you choose cool pastels or vibrant warm tones? Will your life pause be fraught with anxiety and fear or calmness and faith? Like an artist, you have the opportunity to select the colors that fill your waiting canvas. Your pops of color represent hope, joy, and encouragement in the waiting journey. Later, you will look back on this season of life and see how the colors blend together in a way pleasing to the eye and comforting to the heart.
The Design Creation
Some artists use a photo for inspiration and sketch a design before painting. Others begin with a general idea but create as they go. Sometimes, a painting takes on a life of its own and ends up differently than the painter envisioned.
When we encounter a life pause, we may think we have a general idea of what lies ahead, but the time frame is rarely what we anticipate and the elements of waiting not what we expected. You may grow in ways you didn’t imagine, tackle obstacles you didn’t see on the horizon, work through issues you placed on hold years ago, and find trust and blessings in long days of not knowing what comes next.
The Finished Work of Art
After years of pause, my daughter began painting again. I am amazed by her creations and thankful she resumed the use of her God-given talent. Her works are uniquely hers and mirror her skills, perception, and creativity.
No matter what season of life you are in, whether waiting, grief, personal struggle, disappointment, or joy, your life is painting a picture for others to view. Will they see thankfulness, compassion, love, and maturity, or complaining, indifference, hatred, and selfishness?
God, the Master Creator, has a design for your life that involves challenges, disappointments, and waiting as well as periods of success, creativity, and smooth brush strokes. In the difficulties and the times of ease, God’s master plan is painting a life picture far more beautiful than any you could create on your own. In waiting, allow him to model and reshape you into His handiwork. You are His masterpiece, fine art crafted with love.
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10 NLT).
©CandyArrington
Candy Arrington is a writer, blogger, speaker, and freelance editor. She often writes on tough topics with a focus on moving through, and beyond, difficult life circumstances. Candy has written hundreds of articles, stories, and devotionals published by numerous outlets including: Inspiration.org, Arisedaily.com, CBN.com, Healthgrades.com, Care.com, Focus on the Family, NextAvenue.org, CountryLiving.com, and Writer’s Digest. Candy’s books include Life on Pause: Learning to Wait Well (Bold Vision Books), When Your Aging Parent Needs Care (Harvest House), and AFTERSHOCK: Help, Hope, and Healing in the Wake of Suicide (B&H Publishing Group).
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3 Comments
Amen. His master plan is better than anything we could ever imagine.
This may be one of the loveliest ways I’ve ever heard waiting explained. Thank you, Candy.
Thank you so much, Cathy!