I had a dream. A dream where I waited in a long line. The queue of people wrapped around faded cement buildings. I saw a white haired woman with a bag of yarn, a business man in a smart suit and polished shoes, a mom with bags under her eyes, her boys with hair like down, their sticky fingers pulled at the hem of her misshapen shirt. We ebbed forward in an endless, snaking line. As I scanned the crowd of unfamiliar, yet distinct faces, I sensed they all had their own story--their own reason for waiting. The impatient moments passed like years, as the faces grew older. Boys grew to men, the aged grew more frail, hair grew flecks of grey, smooth faces became etched.
My dreams are a tangle of my uncertainty. The compost of hope, fear, and experience. But I woke with four words echoing in my mind:
THIS TIME WILL PASS
This time will pass of waiting with questions, and answers that are too big for you to wrap your thoughts around.
This time will pass of mind-numbing work, wondering if you’re making a difference.
This time will pass of sleepless nights and foggy days, up round the clock feeding a needy human that pulls the life from your tired body.
This time will pass of tension in your home–thick silence as you wade in the muddy water of hurt and resentment.
This time will pass of sticky kisses, and “Mommy I want you,” and “Hold me.”
This time will pass of aching uncertainty, chest heavy with rocks, minutes passing like gravel through your tender heart.
This time will pass of “honey I’m too tired,” or “let’s sneak away,” like school children stealing a few sacred minutes together.
This time will pass when you feel called to something greater, but tied to something that’s needed.
This time will pass of arms and legs pulled in every direction, lap always full, your body never your own.
This time will pass of childlike enthusiasm, curious questions, and “just one more” story.
This time will pass of a confusing blur of doctor appointments and medicine, side effects, and charts of numbers to explain your painful reality.
This time will pass of holding hands, and wrinkling your nose as you laugh at an inside joke, looking at each other with certain love, and fragile hope.
This time will pass of feeling breathless from a pain too big to feel at once, and loss too big to ever fill.
This time will pass of hoping and trying, and waiting, and testing–the crush of another negative, the painful push to keep trying.
This time will pass of disappointment, of resentment and hurt, of unmet expectations, and longing…
This time will pass of smallness, of innocence, of dreaming, and planning…
This moment, in its mundaneness, its beauty, its pain, its plainness–it will pass.
It will all come to pass.
So we must rub our sleepy eyes, and pay attention. We must tie our heart to the present, and offer our presence, to show up, to love, and to trust that each moment is writing a beautiful story of redemption and grace, woven into the greatest love story ever written.