What are you waiting for?

... in the check out line at the grocery store?  Waiting for the gas to fill your tank?   Are you waiting in line at the movies?  Possibly, waiting on some test results, either medical or academic?  Do you know someone who is waiting on their SAT scores like here at the Pillars household?  Kids are waiting to grown up, teens are waiting to drive cars, graduate out of high school, adults are waiting to retire, possibly travel.

We are always waiting for something, aren't we?  Waiting seems to be just another task to complete each day, so why is waiting any different that any other activity we do daily?  Waiting takes on a very exciting rush of both fear and joy when one is expecting a baby; as the baby grows there is excitement about meeting a new person.  I remember how it felt each time I was pregnant, being excited, but also wondering about this new person; the anticipation of the delivery, the baby, and the health of both.

Waiting, it is what we do as a member of this world, but do we do it well?  Do we do it with the proper frame of mind?  Grouchy, impatient, or patient and good natured, as we stand in line or sit with a phone in our ear?  Can we be comfortable in the waiting mode for however long the waiting takes?

Waiting can be hard, especially when we aren't really sure why we are waiting.  

The season of Advent can be one of those times when we really don't understand what we are waiting for.  On the one hand, the commercial world is telling us "why wait to decorate" put up your Christmas tree the week of Thanksgiving and they hold "Black Friday" retail sales to get us in the gift-giving panic mode even before Advent begins.  All the while the Church is telling us it's not Christmas yet, and there is some waiting to do.  How do we go against the commercial tide that is everywhere around us to abide in the Church's practices and calendar?

Advent also marks the new year in the Catholic liturgical calendar and as we all know new years bring new beginnings; a chance to start over and possibly do better than last year.  A new year brings new adventures, possibilities, and events to ponder and wait for with excitement and some cautious curiosity; if not a tinge of fear.  There may be plans now that will come to fruition this new year that are already being waited for.  But wait, there is more!

More to wait for, something you don't hear about on the nightly news (ugh!), or in the newspaper, and it's not a something, but a someone.  No, it's not the baby Jesus, (or a sleigh full of toys being drawn by reindeer) that we are really waiting for, no.

It is the resurrected Jesus in total fulfillment of His saving glory.  It is the Kingdom of God that we are waiting for, the place of paradise that the thief at the cross spoke of.  It's the Return.  That is what we are truly waiting for.

In our day to day lives, we strive for reachable goals:  meeting a deadline at work, getting the laundry done and finishing papers, jobs, chores, and assignments.  But there is a reachable goal that we hardly ever think of, much less strive for:  Eternal paradise, the Kingdom of God.

Christ came to us as a human child to bring us the Kingdom of God.  He came to fulfill a mission that came to fulfillment at His passion and resurrection.  He said he was preparing a room for us in His Father's house.

In our busy days of waiting, are we preparing ourselves to be invited into these prepared rooms?