Ready. Set. Wait!

 “PLEASE, Momma we just want to open just one gift!”  Every Christmas my little sister Jamie and I begged and pleaded with our parents to open our gifts that we no longer could stand to see looking so beautiful under the tree.  It was like they were singing some brainwashing melody open me you have to open me and only Jamie and I could hear their lullaby.

 Normally, we were able to talk mom into letting us open at least one gift earlier. However, one year our desperate pleas only found us at a dead end street named NO Girls.  So Jamie and I thought it was time to take matters into our own hands.  We had plotted for several days, trying to guess, and shake each package hoping that we would figure out what was under that wrapping paper. Finally, a light bulb in my 14 year old mind went off. I was convinced that I had figured out the best way for us to no longer have to “WAIT” to see what was under the tree.  Now, I just needed Jamie to believe me for my plan would work.

 Jamie and I spent the next several hours carefully un wrapping each present paying extra attention to not tear any paper. I had made sure to make it clear to Jay that we must go slow because one torn package would give us away to Mom and Dad.  As Jamie stood watching the front door for any signs of Mom and Dad I made sure we got everything wrapped and back in place just as we found it before they pulled into the driveway.  Trust me that took some ninja unwrapping skills.

Jamie and I kept that secret until we were both in our late 20s and one Christmas Eve we confessed the story to our parents.

Now that my girls are older I have heard at least 10 times, “Momma, please can we open just one gift.”

Funny thing is I truly now looking back on it feel  like if I would have just had some patients and waited that Christmas would have been one of the most amazing surprising years. My parents had gone out of their way to make it so special for Jamie and me.

I am not that 14 year old girl begging and pleading to open the presences under the tree, but I have found myself in other situations that my family is facing now. Begging come on God! Why do we have to WAIT! Just please make this happen for us.  I have prayed Jeremiah 29:11 until I feel I am blue in the face.

King David is a man who understood waiting on a very deep level. When David was not talking directly to God in his psalms, he was usually talking to himself- trying to remind himself of who his God  was and what he would do. By speaking the affirmations of his faith so that his heart and soul would hold to that truth, and look past his circumstances.   I feel like David is a prime example for when we feel like our circumstances are bleak, or when God is answering our prayers with “wait”. We can follow David’s example in Psalms.  Just as David knew of God’s faithfulness and that God will always bring thing in God’s perfect timing and according to His plan. We can rest in knowing that same God is in control of our circumstances as well. 

So here is my Two Cents Worth  take it or leave it. 


I do not know what you are facing in life right now, but for me I have faced the feelings of uncertainty from moving states, and the impatient feelings from everything not falling into place as I had expected.  Trust me when I say I am “PREACHING TO THE CHOIR” but the only thing I can encourage us to do is.  We must remember what God has done for us in the past, and how he has brought us through difficult circumstances in the past.  When we place our hope in God, we will never be disappointed.