How Long?

"How long Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?" Psalm 89:46

This is a verse I have wrestled with off and on since my daughter's diagnosis as we have hit road bump after road bump and complication after complication. Today, I hear echoes of it across my Facebook feed as the world keeps asking, "How long?" 

How long before life gets back to normal? How long before we can go out again? How long before we can go back to work? How long before my kids are back in school? How long before my business has to close? How long before I go bankrupt? How long?

There is a cumulative pressure that builds when living day to day in crisis management. Each new pressure takes on a different weight than the one before it. If I am honest, I will say, " I am tired." I want to be the person who is endlessly optimistic in the face of challenges, but I confess that  I can still allow life and heartache to get in my way.  

This past week has been a rollercoaster of emotions. The joy of welcoming my newborn granddaughter to the world against the backdrop of guidance that left us questioning whether or not we should wait to meet her. This was quickly followed by a post partum emergency that left us struggling with what decisions that would have been quick and easy pre-COVID, but became more complicated in the face of potential exposure and transmission concerns.  

Who should take my daughter to the ER? Who should stay with the baby? What is the protocol when you are immune compromised but your child needs you? What is the protocol for two parents who have three children to care for? Should one stay home to reduce exposure? Questions we never expected to have to ask ourselves in the midst of an emergency were making it harder to decide on the next right step. We finally put a halt to overthinking and went with the solution that made our daughter feel the most secure. Her Dad and I stayed with the baby, so she could have her husband with her for support.  

Things are settling back down on that front, but this past weekend left me feeling "war weary".  When I am stressed ( and when I am not stressed), I rely on "quiet time" in the morning for readings and prayers to help center my day. It was during this practice that I came across this verse again. Even though the lesson was meant to assure me of God's perfect timing, I found myself focused on the part of the passage asking "Will you hide from us forever?"

It was in the heartache, I finally realized the lesson in this verse for me, is not in the waiting, but instead in the finding. Just because God does not seem to be answering,  does not mean he is not showing up. He showed up this weekend in an unexpected day spent holding and caring for my first granddaughter. He showed up in phone calls from friends and family at the just the right moment. He is showing up in the world around us as our front line "heroes" in the medical community, the pharmaceutical community, the service community continue to "show up" for their jobs despite safety concerns. He shows up in the video from a talented high school girl sharing a song from her heart despite an abrupt end to her senior year activities. He is always showing up if I simply redirect my gaze. If God is hiding, he is hiding in plain sight. 

In our season of waiting, we have a choice. We can choose to wallow or we can choose to wonder at the world around us.  We can choose to remain focused on the unanswered prayer or we can choose to focus on the GODness that surrounds us every day. We can choose to see God as hiding from us or we can choose to see God standing by us. Today, tomorrow and the next day, I will try to choose better. How about you?