In the Waiting
A recent request has given me reason to think about my seventeen-year waiting period before starting to write in earnest and about what God had been doing in it.
My time of waiting was a quiet, mostly hidden period where it appeared as if little was happening. But, like most hidden periods, there was a great deal under the surface. More, even, than I was aware of.
Our waiting is like Holy Saturday. We sit in the emptiness, quite often in a sort of death – a death to self, a death to control and of self-reliance, a death of productivity - at least for a time.
The disciples, following the Lord’s death and before the Resurrection, struggled with a great deal of sorrow and uncertainty, of confusion and apprehension, unable to make sense of what was happening and unable to move forward. In our Holy Saturdays, we struggle with those same things.
A promise or a desire is given but not fulfilled. A deep longing is felt but not met. When? How? We’re left with questions and uncertainty, at times wondering if we will ever be given answers. Oftentimes doubting ourselves or the promise that seemed to have been made. It is easy to become skeptical, easy to fall into discouragement.
As people of faith we know that, like on Holy Saturday, something is happening. Though we cannot see it, a transformation is occurring. We are slowly becoming the people we need to be in order to answer the Lord’s call.
In the prayer life, there are periods of abundance and periods of dryness. So too in the life of discipleship. The mystery is that the dry periods are often more fruitful than the abundant ones. It is because, in the dryness, transformation occurs.
In the abundant periods of discipleship, it is easy to march forward and act. It is tempting to put all our effort into doing and creating. But in the dry periods, in the waiting, we must pull back and sit in the void. It is then that we have space to offer ourselves to God, to throw ourselves on Him. It is then that we realize our need and our dependence, that we realize that we cannot just make things happen on our own, that it really is God’s timing and not ours.
In reflecting and researching, I found a quote from St. Thérèse that I find fascinating: “I am certain, then, that You will grant my desires; I know, O my God! that the more You want to give, the more You make us desire. I feel in my heart immense desires and it is with confidence I ask You to come and take possession of my soul.”
One can almost hear in her words the immense desire she is feeling, as well as the certainty that her desires had their origin in God and confidence that He will, indeed, fulfill them.
What is particularly interesting is that she does not say to God, “I beg you to grant my desires,” but, “Come and take possession of my soul.”
Thérèse is saying, “Not my will but Yours be done.” But she also goes beyond that: “I offer You not only my will but my whole being. I give You everything. I trust You that much. Rather than granting me these desires for my own fulfillment, take me and make me Your own, that any desires that You satisfy will be answered only in You, through You, and for Your glory.”
It is to that same sentiment that, though I was not fully aware of it, I believe God has been calling me. To which God is calling us all. “I offer You, Lord, my whole being. I give You my entire self, all that I am, all that You have given me, every call You have placed on my heart, every desire I have. I give You my waiting, my uncertainty, all discouragement. I trust that You will satisfy the desires You have given me, but, even more, I ask that You make me Your own so that all desires that You satisfy will be answered only in You, through You, and for Your glory. Lord, come and take possession of my soul and of my life.”
Yes, He was, and is, most certainly calling me to offer a gift of myself to Him again and again, until I am wholly and completely His. Until there is no doubt in my mind that the blessings He bestows are from Him alone. Until my life, my desires, my will are merged with His. He wants nothing less than my heart to be cracked open to receive all that He desires to pour into it – His very self. The fulfillment of these desires – my writing in particular – flows from that mutual gift. Our Lord wants the same for you.
Now that I am entering into a season of greater productivity in writing, I can attest to the fact that it is difficult to maintain that same level of dependence on Him. It can be difficult to continue to give myself to Him as I am pouring into writing. I am convinced that times of waiting and of hiddenness are better suited to growth in self-donation and union with Him than are times of productivity.
But once the foundation has been laid, the continued work of and devotion to the interior apostolate of prayer and union with God gives breath to the exterior work. God speaks into our words and actions from that sacred space, growing His presence both interiorly and exteriorly, both within and through us.