On Waiting

If you're a New Yorker, there's a decent chance that you and I are in the same boat. I have entered the Hamilton lottery practically every day for almost two years. I also enter my husband's name in the drawing every day because I want to double my chances of winning--and also because if I ever do win I don't want to be forced to choose one of my friends to accompany me. That's how blood feuds are started.

"If" is an important word in this discussion, because no matter how many times I enter the Hamilton lottery, there is absolutely no guarantee that I will win. At least 10,000 people enter the drawing daily, and if each person requests two tickets, there are 11 winners. And my odds are just as terrible every time I enter--the only way I could make my odds any better or worse would be to not enter at all. At least I could maintain some semblance of control if I stopped entering--and I could stop getting those devastating emails "Unfortunately, you have not been selected...". But I keep entering, and hoping, and not winning. Would it be better not to enter at all? Should I just focus that energy on something else I care about? If I never see this, will my theater going life be forever lacking?

Spoiler alert: These questions aren't really about Hamilton.

On my 28th birthday--my Golden Birthday extravaganza--I sat around a cramped Cafe Lalo table with my girlfriends and we discussed what I thought might happen in the next year of my life. I told them I thought it would be a year full of "big changes" and "exciting life events". Which was me saying in a not-at-all-cryptic way that I thought at some point during the next year my husband Jared and I would be having a baby. We had decided it was time, and I figured, "Hey! I'm good at making things happen. Piece of cake."

But my 29th birthday came and I wasn't pregnant. And for the 20 minutes before my party I cried over the lost possibilities of the last year of my life. The things I had thought would be, the ideas I had about being a 28 year old mother. Honestly, I cried over all the cocktails I had pointlessly passed on since my last birthday, just in case I was pregnant. There's an upsetting thought. And then I put on my birthday tutu and my lipstick and I went to my party and smiled, surrounded by people who didn't know I was all hollowed out on the inside like a dead tree.

I went back and forth about sharing this writing with the world because deciding you're ready to have a baby is not really anyone's business but your own, and Jared and I have been keeping it mostly to ourselves. (As much as I keep anything to myself because I am, in fact, a terrible secret keeper.) And I hesitated because I really don't want advice or labels or suggestions from well-meaning friends and family. Before anyone sends me a bunch of articles about having a baby or not being able to have a baby or what have you, let me just say this: there's no apparent medical reason why I am not pregnant.

The reason I finally did decided to share this (like, finally--I initially wrote this in September of last year) is that the core of what I am struggling through and trying to piece together is something you are probably dealing with too--and if it's not you, it's someone you know who needs your support--and it likely has nothing to do with babies. It's waiting and what it means to wait hopefully for something without missing the beauty of the moment you are in. How to trust God while you wait and still do what you can to work toward a goal. To accept that you might wait forever, and to decide that if you do, that will be okay. And still get up in the morning and trust that God's plan for your life is good. To intentionally submit to the life that God has for you.

So. Um... How do you do that?? 

I am not the type of person who waits patiently. Actually, thinking over my life, I'm not the type of person who has had to wait for anything--not really, not something that I was unsure would come to pass. I am an "action" person. I see the end goal and I make a plan to get there, because that's how I get to keep the process under my control. But when it comes to something that isn't in your control, something you really want--you know, like Hamilton tickets--how do you deal with that?

The past two years of having no control, no way to stop the waiting, have pulled to the surface huge questions about my faith that I have struggled to answer. The core question is, "Do I trust God?" And sadly, the answer to that question--despite what I may have said or even truthfully thought--in practice has been no. The past two years have made it overwhelmingly clear that I have put my faith in myself alone, for my entire life. 

I'm a firm believer (again, in a theoretical sense that doesn't translate to my real life) that God chooses experiences for us. He's curating specific situations for me in order to bring me closer to him. In order to make me more aware of His power in my life. And when I barrel through that time intent on getting to the next thing, I miss all of those lessons. To be clear, this time of waiting has been incredibly hard. Painful, numbing, nonsensical. I have cried, I have been angry, I have been illogically annoyed and hurt by baby announcements. I have struggled to see how this kind of waiting could be for good--for me or anyone else.

But if I am honest, I know that I would never voluntarily stop running from one giant adventure to the next, and so without this waiting I would never have seen this enormous gap in my faith. I never learned the art of yearning for something, wanting something so badly that I would continually petition God for it. It's just not a skill that I am familiar with. Of course I have prayed for things, but at the very same moment I would think "Eh, I'll just take care of this myself". I didn't know how to ask and mean it, how to keep asking, how to believe that God could or would give me my desires, how to trust that if He didn't that was for my good and part of the plan He had for me. I still don't entirely know how, but gracious. I am trying. 

I have several dear friends in my New York City circle who make it a point to talk about what's really going on in our lives and faith. In the past year our constant refrain has been: "I am ready for the next thing, but it isn't happening yet. How do I look forward and prepare but also see the beauty around me today?" Each of us are in very different places in our careers and relationships and goals and ambitions. We have each been waiting for something that we want, and a primary function of our discussions has been to remind one another that the "next thing" is not where our hope should lie. That the next thing is not a magical unicorn that will make everything perfect. That much like my faith shouldn't be in myself and my abilities, it also can't be in the outcome that I'm dreaming of.

As long as I put my hope and joy in my circumstances I will always be disappointed. If I can't be happy and thankful and satisfied through Christ now, I also can't be those things with a bigger apartment or a new job or a baby. Even if I find myself with everything I could want or need, I will still not be fulfilled if I place more value on my circumstance than on the presence of God in my life. Not one of those things, even though they might be good, can support the weight of my soul. 

I'm not saying any of this because I'm an expert, clearly I don't have answers. All I can really say is this: If you are in this place, you are so completely not alone. I know because I'm there and I know so many other people who are right there too, at this very moment. If you aren't in this place, keep your eyes open for someone who is, and do your best to encourage them. I have seen people who have made their way through the seemingly endless waiting. When the time was right, God brought the answer to their question and even if it was a different answer than they expected it was good because it was from Him.

I've been so encouraged by these verses from Psalm 27 and I hope you will be too.

"I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

So Much Love, 
Precious Flowers

(And PS, eventually Hamilton released a block of tickets for the Chicago production that were cheap enough for me to buy in good conscience. So even my waiting for that will come to an end in October. <3 )