As a new wife I struggled with meals. I mean the pasta would be hot, just not at the same time as the broccoli. Or the sauce. Somehow thinking backwards for timing when to start each item addled me. But John was patient, and I gradually got better. For a few years I solved it by only serving one thing. Plus someone invented a microwave.

 

The other day I was stuck in a parking lot that had an unusual amount of congestion. I tried to be patient, but I did need to be somewhere soon. 

 

I mailed a package to my daughter and felt anxious for it to arrive. When I checked the itinerary it seemed to be be stuck on a circuitous route. Really? Going through Chicago made sense? 

 

I was talking with a friend who feels like she is waiting for her marriage to get to the next level. They are raising their kids, they eat supper, he goes to work. But the laughing that was so abundant in their dating years has evaporated. Heart to heart conversations, once so frequent, are a rarity. Hugs used to be a daily flourish. Now they are seasonal. She longs for connection, but when she asks for it he is skittish. In the absence of intimacy, she is lonely. 

 

Single people are often still waiting for marriage to start. They try looking in all the right places, but so far it eludes them. How is that fair?

 

Waiting for pasta when the tomato sauce is getting cold is annoying, and could be averted by a more efficient chef. The flow of cars can be managed more agreeably with good signage. Fed Ex hires contractors to expedite their systems.

 

There were times as a mother that I wished things could hurry up. Potty training, for one. Financial independence was another. 

 

But I wonder if the waiting that seems endemic to life is a result of mismanagement. God could in all probability skip the middle part between starry eyes and rocking chairs, or toddlers and college grads. But something would be sacrificed. He could assign us partners, and avoid all the confusion. Yet either the relationship itself, or the materials He has to work with... that would be us... seem to slow things down. 

 

I have some theories about why love cannot be overnighted, or zapped, or airlifted in. 

 

But I will get back to you on that. In the meantime, I am waiting too.