God is in the Waiting
PASTOR MELINDA SPARKS
I am outwardly a patient person. I usually don’t go around yelling at people who move too slow in a crowded grocery store, I typically don’t curse people who take a little bit too long to bring food to my table at a restaurant. I normally don’t pitch a public hissy fit in church when the sermon goes too long, or song, or prayer, or benediction (eyeballs on me, my friends, sorry about that Imago:))
However, inwardly is a different story. I’m yelling on the inside, I’m cursing on the inside, and I’m hissy fitting all over the place in my heart at church - (can she please just shut up already - we get it for crying out loud!!!)
Waiting is one of my least favorite things, I just don’t typically explode that annoyance onto others’ ears and lives unless it’s my children - poor Jack.
And yet waiting is what we all do. We are waiting for COVID to be over. We are all waiting for normal to return. We are waiting for jobs to return. We are waiting for schools to return. We are waiting to go eat at a restaurant or shop at TJ Maxx without restrictions or fear of touching the cart. We are waiting to see if we show symptoms after a COVID exposure. We are waiting for church life, community life, social life, family life to return to normal. We are waiting on a loved one to recover. We are waiting for a loved one to pass as peacefully as possible. We are all waiting.
The grief of it all is enormous and most times, at least for me, overwhelming. It leaves me scared, grasping for that red cord of hope, tears at the ready all day, weary of the sad news, dreading any news, and wondering, where did my faith go? But most of all, it has revealed my impatience, in all its ugliness, myopicness, and fruitlessness.
So today, I need a bit of encouragement and maybe you do too. God did not send COVID. God is not using COVID to be a blessing to us. God is not punishing us.
And believe me, I get it, God feels mean to some of us right now, capricious and cruel. For some of us, God feels like the absentee father, who never paid child support. We feel abandoned, alone, angry, confused, and all the emotions in between. Hope and faith are truly hard to come by these days.
On the days that I feel angry with God, and there have been a few, I let God know about it. It’s okay to be mad. On days that I feel abandoned, I let God know about that too. It’s okay to feel deserted.
None of us have to put on a Christian happy face and pretend that everything is okay when everything is clearly okay. If and when you are not “feeling it”, then you don’t have to pretend that you do.
Pastor Carlos Rodriguez says, “Don’t pretend. Cry. Scream. Break a few things if you need to. God is not afraid of your darkness. Actually, the Spirit is masterful at creating in the chaos”
We are all waiting in the chaos, in the unknown, in the terrifying. And although I loathe waiting, here is what I am going to do during this time. I won’t pretend that everything is okay. When I need to cry, I will. When I need to scream or break a few things, I will.
And while I do not feel it, I will choose to believe that God loves me, that God is for me and not against me, that God is on my side, and God is actively working to bring good out of bad. And I will choose to believe that something is being created in this chaos and I will choose to believe that God is in the waiting.
Melinda grew up in a small town in Mississippi and transplanted to Tupelo, MS and then Huntsville, AL for most of her adult life.
In 2012, after fifteen years of teaching the bible in various churches, she made the decision to pursue her lifelong dream of studying the bible in an academic setting with various theological voices in her ears. Her understanding of God, Jesus and the bible was made all the more richer because of this pursuit. She obtained an undergraduate and Master’s degree in Religious Studies from Athens State University. She was also ordained and licensed to ministry by Locust Grove Church in New Market, AL in 2020.
Melinda is a storyteller and she loves to hear other people’s stories. She considers this a sacred part of her calling and as an enneagram 4, she also considers authenticity and vulnerability a sacred part of her calling too.
She is the mom of 3 adult children, Colby, Anna and Sam,1 teen, Jack,and 1 grandchild, A.J. .
She is an avid reader, and is rarely without a book in my hands, but she is seriously lacking in domesticated skills, particularly cooking. Some of her favorite authors are Anne Lamott, Richard Rohr, Walter Brueggemann, Glennon Melton, Barbara Brown Taylor, John Grisham, Charlaine Harris and Rachel Held Evans.