The View from the Waiting Room

January 15, 2011
The Waiting Room Series: The View from the Waiting Room
By: Katie Snyder

I've known Katie for what seems like all my life. In reality, it's been almost twelve years. She's one of the funniest, most talented, women of God I know. We've walked through some really tough seasons of life together, and also, some pretty great ones. I love her like a sister and even though I don't get to see her as often as I used to, we always pick up where we left off. This is one of her best blog posts I've read, so I know you're going to be encouraged and blessed after reading it.

I was in an actual waiting room the other day. It was uncomfortable. Most everyone was trying to appear to be preoccupied. Texting, reading, staring at the muted TV. I was watching everyone – which meant eyes darting to and fro, bodies leaning away from me in unnatural positions – I’m sure I was a little off-putting what with my notepad dead pan stares.

Every waiting room has its stereotypes, the annoying girl on the phone, spilling the nothings about her life so loudly just to let everyone know how important she is. The woman trying to tame her child as he runs all around the room shouting, “Bang, bang, bang!” and leaving the snotty contagious disease in his wake. The frail old woman nestled in her chair, barricaded in by her walker, taking a little morning snooze, who is seated next to her loving daughter who dotes on and coddles her gently and lovingly. The middle-aged, tubby man with his glasses on the tip of his nose with the newspaper caging him in from the rest of the room. I know you all have it pictured in your mind now – you see it so clearly, don’t you?

Do you know what I saw, though? I saw the glittering ring on that annoying girl’s finger, a girl at least 8 years younger than me, and I listened to her “nothings” about the dream wedding she was planning. I saw a mom, lovingly teaching and guiding her child, a child she had probably long awaited, joyfully expected, and loved with a love that no word could ever describe. I saw a woman, who had lived a long full life, who had raised her daughter in the way that she should go and was now resting in the safety of it. I saw a man, who just moments before that newspaper went up, had kissed his wife and stroked her face and told her that everything would be okay as she went into the examining room. I saw relationship all around me and there I was, just an observer, just a quiet little fly on the wall, taking it all in.

I am thirty years old. I am confident, independent, and steady. I am wise, candid, and have integrity. I love Jesus and I love His people. I am compassionate, sensible, and joyful. I love fiercely and passionately. I am faithful and loyal and quick to forgive. I have been through a lot of hard places in life and I know what it means, to the very core of my spirit, to choose that God is good all the time, no matter what my eyes see, my mind perceives, or my heart feels. I have been pruned, and cut down, and dug up, and replanted and pruned again…countless times. And I love God all the more for all of that gardening because I will never fail to bear good fruit now.

I am single. I have no children. I am in the waiting room. It is uncomfortable here. I distract myself with many things – friendships, TV, reading, movies – to make it through the wait. I often get caught up in what I’m doing and forget just how long I’ve been here, how lonely I really am. But then, I catch a glimpse of the clock and the ticking echoes so loudly in my head it’s almost deafening. I get impatient and pace the floor, I look out of the window, I watch all of the other people come and go from the waiting room and wonder when it will be my turn. My name has been called a few times, just for questioning, for clarification, but never to go back for real. Sometimes, I want to tell the receptionist to just cancel my appointment, I’ve got other things to do than just wait around here the rest of my life. Sometimes, I’m that girl on the phone; I just want someone to listen to my life. Someone to witness my life. Someone to share my life. Someone that will make my life seem important.

A few years ago, the Lord challenged me, “Katie, if you never marry, if you are never called “Mommy,” will you still choose me? Will I be enough?” I cried and mourned for a very long time that afternoon while the Lord patiently, lovingly waited for me to reply. My reply, of course, was yes. He’s a way maker. He makes a way when there seems to be no way. If I’m called to singleness, He’ll change my heart. But for right now, I have to practice what I preach. I can’t just say, “The Lord is enough,” I have to live my life in a way that shouts, “The Lord is enough for me…He’s all I need!!!!” I believe this most days, I struggle on others – but my struggling doesn’t change that He’s still enough – He’s who He says He is, even when I’m not who I say I am.

I struggle with feeling I’m unseen. I struggle that I know a lot of Godly men, some of whom have even told me point blank, “If I were looking for a wife, you are exactly what I’d look for,” and then they have listed out all of my attributes that make me a good choice for a wife…but even they don’t SEE me as anything but a sister, a friend, a confident, a source of Godly wisdom and counsel. I am unseen, veiled, and though this makes me set apart, as I should be, sometimes, I just want to yank that veil off and scream, “Pick me, you moron, I’m right here!”

But…for now, I’m going to stay in the waiting room. It’s hot and cramped and if I’m not careful…I could pick up something that makes me sick. I grow weary and impatient a lot of the time. I have to work hard to silence the incessant ticking of that ever tocking clock. I have purposed that I’m going to observe the life all around me and rejoice for those whose names are called. But, in my heart, I just await the day when the door creaks open, a chart is yanked off the wall, and my name is called out… “Katie, he’ll see you now.”

By: Katie Snyder
Location: Citrus Heights, CA
Blog: http://www.aglimpseatthislife.wordpress.com