Indian Summer

Goodbyes are not all they're cooked up to be, sometimes as painful as that first blast of winter cold that follows the colorful short-lived October of our lives. God's creation in living vibrant color all too soon fades into cold reality. Life has its disappointments and heartaches. Where do we go from here? How do we get back to the beautiful Indian Summer when all is said and done? How do we wait out that long anticipated call that will make everything right again?

I've been down that path often, but never with such intense significance as that first and only "goodbye" experience. I thought it was forever. I wanted him back in my youthful life. Some way, somehow. And then one day the call came in answer to the desires of my heart. It led to my marriage of over fifty years. But why the wait—the anticipation?

Sometimes it's not we who are waiting. It is the Lord who waits that he may be gracious unto us. We don't understand it. We don't have to. That's the beauty and glory of serving a God who has all the answers, who fulfills our hopes and longings in his time and in his way with that slightest, but most significant, disclosure from the last part of his promise: blessed are all they that wait for him.

Isaiah 30:18. "And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, And therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: For the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him."