Friday, March 7

on waiting | psalms and the sea

Dear friend,

My grandfather was a fisherman. Have I ever told you that?


My best memories are of when he lived near water, when it was clear he had found a stillness. He got up before dawn nearly every morning and learned to read the weather by the morning sky, its colors, textures, and hues.

By Rezensor via Wikimedia Commons
He invited me to go fishing with him when I was a kid. I went once when I was nine and never went again. It seemed like an eternity stretched out between hours, damp with lingering chill, and all I did was sit on a bucket in a wooden boat in the water. 

All I did was wait.

-

About a year ago, I helped pick colors to paint a house. I live in that house now. The green upstairs looks more mint than forest tinged. The firefly yellow looks like a street lamp at dusk. Colors on real walls are different than colors on swatches and cans. Real colors come alive and bump with imperfection, grow warmer and cooler depending on the light and time of day.


If I could give you a polaroid of my life, that's what it looks like now: different from how I've imagined it but alive and warm and surprising despite its imperfections and my own.


In many ways, I am still the girl on the bucket in the boat, surrounded by water. I am older now. My questions are more complicated. I still have handfuls of dreams that are wild, ever reaching things. I still tell elaborate stories. In many ways I am still waiting. And you know, I have found a weird peace with waiting, a respect for the work it does. How it 
carves away your idea of what matters until what you have left is pure. It challenges everything you think about yourself and humility and grace.

I felt drawn to learn more about Lent in this season because it's all about waiting and expectation. Here in the quiet, I have found time enough and words that feel true-- in this year of waiting, I've finally learned to watch the sky. I've learned to sit in darkness and be still, clinging to what I know is true. To wait for my God, more than the watchmen wait for dawn. Yes, more than the watchmen wait for dawn.

-


On the Fridays leading up to Easter, I'll be blogging along with the community at She Reads Truth. They've been inspiring to me, and I'm happy to write alongside them. My goal is to write every Friday, not anything flawless or fancy, but all totally from the heart. Feel free to join us, read along, or say hello.

With peace,

E

3 comments:

Naomi said...

So neat to read others reflections. Waiting, watching the sky. Thanks for sharing!

Claire said...

Thanks for your reflections as I grow more in my relationship with God I also feel more comfortable with waiting, to know that I can learn from and even enjoy this time. I'm not sure I would ever enjoy fishing though!

Elizabeth said...

Thanks for reading, Naomi! And, Claire, I still don't really like fishing haha.