about the labor of waiting

Disclaimer: in this blog post, I am going to relate faith to the Nicholas Spark’s story “The Notebook”.  So just, you know, prepare yourselves.

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:25) 

There is something challenging and unique about Advent.  In a season when we prepare ourselves to celebrate, when we reflect on the anticipatory story of light and hope born into a bleak and dreary darkness, we are asked to do something that goes against everything our culture values: 

we're asked to wait.  

Advent is this magical moment where we concern ourselves with the gorgeous blessing of the birth of Christ, and we're reminded that in a broken world, his return is pending. 

I know this is slightly ridiculous and is not at all a perfect connection, but for some reason I started thinking about what waiting actually looks like today.

And I thought about Ryan Gosling. 

Follow me on this one.

Surely you’ve seen the (classic hit) film “The Notebook”.  It’s the story of Allie and Noah, who fall in love as teenagers and then are separated for several years and lots of stuff happens but eventually they are reunited at long last which is good because they belong together (I should probably be a professional movie-synopsis writer). 

Anyway, in the season where Allie and Noah are separated, they both endure this really long period of waiting. 

I love that clip above, the part of the movie where Noah is longing for Allie to return to him and starts to build her dream house, because 1) Noah is moved by an unshakeable hope and 2) his waiting is not passive.  

That is beautiful to me.  

And I think that this hits right on the point of Advent and the purpose of our waiting – it is a labor of love. 

Waiting is really hard.   Especially in our brokenness, we wait impatiently for a healing to our world that feels so often out of reach.  

And yet, there is so much to be done in our waiting.  I actually really love reflecting on the fact that Noah builds a home - a place for the one he loves to delight in and reside.  That mirrors so much of what we SHOULD be doing in our waiting.  We should "prepare him room", and our doing so is witness to our patient hope, our utmost desires. 

I love the chapter of Romans that that verse I posted above comes from.  Paul says, "who hopes for what they already have?" I think that so often, we let our deficiencies and our longings drive us to impatience, and we grow stagnant and bitter in our hearts. 

But how different it would be, if our joy came not because we have already obtained it all, but because we knew that in our waiting, we could build something beautiful, if not complete.