Tag: lady in waiting

In the Waiting

On By femmefuelIn FemmeBytes by JMathis, June 2011 (Men and Boys)Leave a comment

By JMathis

So much can go wrong when you are A Lady in Waiting.

You lose your love. No wonder no one will love me. I’m disgusting. I hate myself for what I have become.

You lose your joy. What’s the point of hanging out with my best friend? She’s married; she just doesn’t understand me anymore.

You lose your peace. What if he’s not calling because he thinks I’m psycho? What if he’s still interested in his ex? What if he’s just not that into me? What if? What if? What if?

You lose your patience. Why is it taking so long for me to meet The One?? I should just settle and go out with Dan. At least I know that he won’t beat me.  

You lose your kindness. If he’s taking this long to propose, he must be a jerk anyway. No guy is worth this wait…especially him.

You lose your goodness. It’s just one hook-up. How long is a girl supposed to wait? Forever?

You lose your faithfulness. God, where are you? Don’t you see that you have abandoned me? Are you even listening? Do you even exist?

You lose your gentleness. I feel like ripping his head off! What does she have that I don’t?

You lose your self-control. He’s probably The One, so what’s the point in us waiting to have sex? I just want to show him how much I love him.

The Fruits of the Spirit get trampled, discarded and lost In the Waiting. It is easy to compromise or lose yourself In the Waiting, as day after day, the tide of hopelessness sweeps in to erode your faith and your resolve.

Think of the Pinot Noir. A complex, rich wine bursting with aromatic intensity and a wide magnitude of subtlety in its notes and depth.

Yet, this wine is the most difficult to cultivate In the Waiting.

It is one of the most expensive and overly burdensome wines for a winemaker to grow, because the skin of these grapes is so thin and delicate—so easily susceptible to viruses, frost, disease and parasites (no wonder they are called “heartbreak grapes”). The fermentation process is so violent that it requires an inordinate amount of patience for the winemaker to craft this wine to perfection.

Yet, the end result is worth waiting through this difficult and temperamental process of cultivation and fermentation: a wine that is elegant, bold, velvety, bright and tantalizing in all of its nobility.

You are worth the wait, ladies.

In the Waiting, there are daunting challenges, where you begin to doubt God and self. Your delicate shell is constantly being assaulted by fear and questioning. However, when your Fruits of the Spirit are tested and strained, know that your faith in God will result in unparalleled beauty and richness in your life and your relationships.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9

The Lord will never leave you alone or defenseless In the Waiting. He is there to cultivate you into something sweet and lustrous–into a fruit bursting with flavor and life.

Will you just trust Him?

Don’t Be a Lady in Waiting

On By femmefuelIn Best of Bindu Adai-Mathew, FemmeFeatures by Bindu Adai-Mathew, June 2011 (Men and Boys)Leave a comment

By Bindu Adai-Mathew

It was 1998. Friends ruled the local channels, and Sex and The City ruled cable television. The Internet was still taking the world by storm and just starting to change our lives. Email, surfing, and cyberspace were becoming everyday terms, and cell phones were just beginning to replace pagers. Oprah was nowhere close to retirement, and Michael Jackson…well, he was still weird…weird, but alive.

I remember looking at the world around me, and realizing much had changed since I had graduated high school and college.  And yet, in many ways, nothing had changed at all…at least not in my life.

I was in grad school at the time, living on my own in my own apartment in the Dallas suburb of Denton, a small college town.

On the outside, I seemed to have it all—a beautifully furnished apartment, a brand new sports car, all the freedom, all the free time I could have ever wanted…but on the inside I felt lost, dazed, and confused regarding my career and my purpose in life. I also had this vacuum of emptiness. Emptiness that longed to be filled with a relationship, complete with romantic candlelight dinners and the promise of a happily ever after.

A constant question mark seemed to loom over my head. When was my life going to start? And by start, I mean, when was I going to finally meet someone?  And not just any someone…The Someone.

This was not how I had planned my life. I was 26. Back in the 1990s, that means you were supposed to be married, engaged, or dating someone.  And I was not alone. I had six close girlfriends. All single…all just as confused, frustrated…waiting. Waiting to find the One. Waiting to Get Married. And Determined Not to be Happy Until One or the Other Happened. I was beginning to live my life like a Lady in Waiting.

Flashforward to 2011, and I’m on the phone with one of those six girlfriends, all of whom, by the way, are married. Before either of us had kids, we talked almost every day on the phone. After her first child, our conversations decreased to a one or two a week. After my daughter was born, they decreased even more. After her second child was born, we have snippets of conversation whenever we can catch a break. But that doesn’t hold true just for our phone conversations, we realized…it seemed to hold true for everything. Time for baths, cleaning the house, and even cooking all suddenly seemed like luxuries rather than something we no longer had a right to.

What were we complaining about in our twenties, she asks me. I can hear the exhaustion and exasperation in her voice. I have no idea, I reply with a laugh as I recall the ability to watch a movie through its entirety. Heck, I even remember having time to go to the movies! We were so stupid not to realize how good we had it, she says. Tell me about it, I reply. Together we breathe in a deep sigh of regret. Why didn’t anyone warn us back then how life just got tougher and more stressful after marriage and kids?  Oh, they warned us, I reminded her. There were plenty of married women and married women with children, encouraging us to enjoy our lives. We were just idiots and didn’t listen. Hindsight is always 20/20.

How ironic…we were finally at the place we had always wanted to be…and what were we doing? Lamenting, missing what we once had…

What I wouldn’t do to be able to jump into a time machine, march up to the second floor of Pace’s Crossing Apartments, and slap my former self back to reality, Moonstruck-style, “Snap out of it!”

Hindsight is always 20/20. But I realize, it doesn’t have to be. As I’ve been on the phone, my 1½ old has been tugging on my leg incessantly. I finally glance down, and she raises her hands and  “eeeehhh—ooooohs” like a monkey, begging to be picked up. I guess the lesson is enjoy whatever stage you are in, I remind my friend. One day, we may be tugging on our kids’ legs, begging them to stay and spend some time with us. Just the other day, I was holding this toddler in my arms as an infant.

Enjoy your lives, ladies. Whatever stage you are in. For our lives are like as James 4:14 says, How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

And that especially goes for you single ladies, particularly to those of you who are living your life as “Ladies in Waiting.” I’m not trying to stop you from wanting, dreaming about a relationship. I just want you to make sure you don’t allow that desire, that dream to stop you from living your life in the meantime. Because I know how those feelings can gnaw on your insides, further hollowing out the emptiness in your gut. You think there’s only one remedy for that emptiness…only to find out years later, it was never really about a boy.