Waiting Rooms-Home of the Easily Annoyed Heart

 

Ever need a healthy dose of perspective in your life?  Well evidently I needed one today...... As I was sitting in the waiting room today it occurred to me how many hours I've spent in the last dozen years in the waiting room with several young children in tow (or within) me.  Please understand that I am a healthy young mom with healthy young children, but even in a healthy family there are still many times that you find yourself in that all too familiar waiting room with the clock never far from your mind.

First, let's stop and think about the term patient.... orthodontist, or chiropractor, or doctor, or dental, or any other area... you are someone's patient.  Ironic title, isn't it?  It certainly does not describe the tone of the waiting room I was in today.... or ever, as a point of fact. 

Think about the last time you spent a great deal of time in the waiting room.....remember it??.... surrounded by rolling eyes, loud sighs, sarcasm, people checking the time frequently, whispers for children to be patient from their own not-so-patient frustrated parents, restless children, people complaining, schedules being adjusted, and far from private phone calls or posts that seem to increase at the same rate of frustration ensuring that everyone possible can share in your temporal affliction.

Truth is, I'm just as guilty as the next guy.  Even if I don't wear it externally, there have been many moments where I've boiled inside over the time I've spent waiting in an exam or waiting room.... especially in those emotionally unstable moments as a new or very expectant mommy.  According to Jesus, internalizing it is just as bad as all the adult temper tantrums I was surrounded by today.... for the Lord above all cares about the condition of our hearts.  Today for the first time I was given some healthy and needed perspective.....

We all have seasons where we have needed urgent attention and been the one to affect someone else's schedule, yet we all struggle to give grace to those who are affected by this daily.  Today as I sat in my waiting room, I wondered what it would look like to follow Jesus here.

God knows everything.... He sees the person that was in our room before us.... He knows the bad news the doctor had to deliver earlier that day..... He knows the urgency and affliction that is all around us...  I wondered if He was sitting in any given waiting room today, offering all that He knew, how much that the tone of place would change..........  how quickly we'd all go from annoyed to grateful.  Grateful... we would all be grateful.  We'd be thankful for the small treatable sicknesses, the well baby visits, the immunizations that we have the terrible freedom to argue about, we'd celebrate our pre and postnatal care, and repeating our medical insurance information for the ten-millionth time. 

Sure, many of us will likely face a medical giant at some point, but most of us will likely spend a great deal of time as someone's relatively healthy (and annoyed--at least internally annoyed) patient first.  Sadly, I don't think it is until that giant arrives that we gain the perspective we should have had all along.  I'm choosing not to wait for it.

I remember one of the things that stood out to me as I watched a young friend battle cancer, was that somehow God had given her an incredible perspective in her suffering.  Even though she was facing this giant cancer, and even though in many moments in the hospital she may have been the most critical patient, He had given her more perspective than most adults to realize that even in those moments, it still wasn't all about her..... even up to her last breath she was praying for those around her.  Wow.

It's time for me to break past being easily annoyed.... and break through to seeing the world around me, and offer my smile and my prayers.  Anybody with me?

I can't speak for you, but I'm following Jesus into my next waiting room....


Heavenly Father,

Lord, you know me... inside and out, and you want to tend to all of me, not just part of me.  Thank you for pursuing my easily annoyed heart.  Father I need you to search my heart and lead me... even and especially when I am easily annoyed.  Give me your perspective to remember that even when I am someone's patient, the world doesn't revolve around me.  Help me to extend grace, offer a smile, and pray for those around me who may be dealing with a medical giant.  Empower me to do these things in good health and in sickness, and replace my annoyance with Your peace.

In the patient name of Jesus I pray,
Amen