embraced by Grace

I guess it's been long enough in between post 1 on waiting to post the number 2. Not that I have any more answers, just some more thoughts...
Sometimes when I interact with folks, I get to hear some great stories. They provide me with a view of their life like a little slice of sweet fruit. Not the whole thing, I mean rarely do we really see the whole of whatever is going on in our lives, but a bit of their story. I have heard stories of people waiting a long time for__________ (fill in the blank). They pray, they hope, and they continue to wrestle out their faith in the waiting. Some people have waited a really long time; it makes me look like a wuss with my whining about the waiting.
What if waiting wasn't just about the wait though? What if it were about preparation?
What if our God - who knows us infinitely more than we know ourselves - is getting us ready for whatever it is that we are hoping for? Consider Abraham, he waited and waited and waited on God's promise and even died still hoping even though he didn't get to see the complete fulfillment of the promise. Think about the Israelites as they were wandering in the wilderness. God wasn't just making them wait for the heck of it; they had to be ready to step into the land God had promised them - and it took said amount of time to get them there. It seems like we have such a timeline for everything, but the truth is: not everyone graduates college in 4 years. And not that it's bad if you do, but it likewise isn't bad if you don't. I'm talking about much more than just college. We have all these expectations of what life is supposed to look like at each age and then become frustrated when we aren't there yet. But maybe, it's that God is still preparing us. Maybe the wait becomes much easier when we grasp that God is still doing something in us WHILE we wait. It has a purpose.
It still doesn't mean we won't struggle and wrestle. I think that's part of growing. But in that, it means our faith is growing too. And that beings me back to the word with which I have a love/hate relationship: process. It's a process. And waiting's part of it.