Meanwhile – Sit With Your Soul

I had always wanted to attend a university out of the country. As one who had strived for academic excellence in high school, this was supposed to be the next natural step for me. My parents, unsurprisingly, had high expectations of me. I had high expectations of myself. I am the firstborn and so much more than just my education was riding on this next season of my life. In hindsight, I can understand this completely, but at the time, the pressure sometimes got to me. Nevertheless, I pushed on with my applications as the standard operating procedure for every other high school graduate my age. I started the process being quite sure of myself and what my next steps were, but after applying to six schools and being accepted into three, I was suddenly confused and anxious instead of excited. For an eighteen-year-old who had had no prior experience discerning the will of God for myself, this was very unsettling. Long story short, I had to go back to the drawing board for what I was meant to do career-wise. This not only puzzled my parents, but as a parent now myself, I know it worried them in more ways than they let on. After much prayer and introspection, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in education, Christian education to be specific.

I had always placed a high value on exposure, even though back then I can’t say that I even knew what it was called. As such, I knew I wanted to pursue training in an environment where children’s ministry was more well-developed. I wanted desperately to bring back the tools I would learn and revolutionise Christian education at my church and in the country at large. Big aspirations I know. I applied to a school I knew would give me the exposure, experience and training ground that I believed were necessary for me. That plan did not work out at all how I had anticipated and though it hurt, I had to quickly make peace with things and attempt to redeem my time while I waited on God. It was during this time that I immersed myself in church service. Some would say I was trying to busy my disappointment away, and to a degree, they would be right in making that assumption, but it was not entirely true. There is no better way to explain it other than that I had an internal drive to be led by God, and I instinctively knew that He could not properly guide me if I idled on the road of my life.

Two-and-a-half years later I had the opportunity to spend three months abroad in an intensive Children’s Ministry internship specially curated for me. It was set to take place four and a half months before my wedding. I was beyond excited, chomping at the bit and determined to maximise the opportunity. Everything had been prepared on the backend, a visa in my passport was the only thing standing between me and a plane ticket. My visa was denied. I remember coming back to the office from the embassy, having both my supervisors speak to me separately and hearing them both say the same thing in different ways… It was all right to grieve the opportunity lost, but it was not the end of the world or the road. I cried long and hard that night. I cried for the girl who had finished high school at the top of her class despite being an average student all through middle school. I cried for the girl who had told her parents she felt called but had nothing to show for it. I cried for the girl who was engaged to be married and realistically judged it difficult to chase this dream as a young wife and later mother. I cried for the girl who wanted so badly to prove she was capable to the many who only saw her juvenile aspirations. I cried for the girl who wanted to make her mother proud and make all the sacrifices she had made worthwhile. I cried for the girl who, as a born leader, wanted to set a good example for her siblings. I cried for them. I cried for me.

My soul, wait silently before God alone, for my expectation is from Him. ~ Psalm 62:5 (NKJV)

Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energizes you. ~ Ephesians 3:20 (TPT)

Have you ever thought about the level of ‘meanness’ that is packed into any meanwhile period? Yes, sometimes meanwhile is simply that, a while of meanness. I knew my not being able to participate in the internship wasn’t the end of the world, but I felt deeply saddened by the sinking feeling that it may have been the end of the road. It seemed like time to say goodbye to a few hopes and dreams I had been nurturing. I had to bury them, grieve them and let them go while I figured out whether this was a temporary meanwhile or a dead end. You may be thinking this was a little too drastic and perhaps you are right, but I have always been a realist, preparing for the worst-case scenario to protect my heart. While in this protective mode, I couldn’t help but wonder if this meanwhile would ever become worthwhile. I thought the previous two-and-a-half years had been my waiting season, through which I tried to stay faithful in all that I did. When was it going to pay off? When was it going to turn from a meanwhile season to a worthwhile season?

Often, we are so focused on the worthwhile moment, that we underestimate our meanwhile seasons. That’s right, worthwhile is just a moment, a short explosive moment that is built up to by staying faithful in the meanwhile seasons. Yet we rarely recognise this, instead, we impatiently wait, counting the days of our meanwhile, so focused on when that worthwhile moment will appear that the meanwhile loses its value and beauty altogether. Look at me now using words like beauty to describe the meanwhile… There is hope for me yet! That’s the charm of life I guess, our meanwhile seasons not only strengthen us, they allow us to truly see ourselves. With no filter, no edits and no masks all we have is the ugly cry and the things that are unearthed by the turmoil of our souls. Those are the things we then have to address. We can choose to pretend they are not there, or we can allow the Holy Spirit to help us work through them, one at a time until our character is refined. The latter is what I like to call, ‘sitting with your soul.’ In the months leading up to my wedding, I was not only in full-swing wedding planning mode, but I also had to do this hard work of sitting with my soul. It wasn’t at all as refined as I have grown to make it, but I did it all the same. The job of looking within to see what needed to go and be replaced with proper tools… truth. In learning to do this often, I have picked up on three things I want to share with you.

Learn to dance in meanwhile

Sitting with your soul is an act of courage, one you will have to become an expert in. Why? Because our lives are more meanwhile than worthwhile. We have those explosive worthwhile moments every so often, but the majority of the time we are in meanwhile seasons, rebuilding for the next worthwhile moment. Worthwhile is overrated! When God shows us the worthwhile that is coming, He by no means wants us to belittle the meanwhile. The trick, I’ve learned, is to avoid looking too far off into the future that you miss out on the present that is preparing you for that future. This doesn’t mean stop dreaming or stop planning, it means stop having your head so far up in the clouds that you are not present in the current moment. No matter how hard, disappointing or difficult our meanwhile seasons get, we can’t resent them so much that we lose the lessons at hand. Learning to dance in the meanwhile is pulling it close and moving with it to the rhythm you hear. When the song is done and the applause roars, you take your bow, take a breath, and start dancing to the next song.

Face your insecurities

We all have insecurities. I know we don’t like to use this word because it makes us sound weak, so let me say it a different way… We all have moments when we entrust our hope to the wrong person or thing. For me, it was that coveted but elusive degree. I see now why God reserved that for me, He wanted to strengthen my reliance on Him. I had to learn to pray for wisdom and trust the intuition given to me by the Holy Spirit because that was all I had. I love that about myself now in that, everything I do, I do because I have been taught by the Spirit of God. Insecurities will not only cause us to be on a constant chase of worthwhile but also to falsely portray worthwhile. In this social media age, I know the pressure is real to keep up with all the people doing all the things. But the truth is that this is just a trap to keep you too preoccupied to look yourself in the mirror long enough to notice the issues that need addressing. God wants to bring the insecurities to light so that He can change our minds about them. He knows that left with them, we are bound to have disappointment down the line and risk being unprepared for the very worthwhile moment we are chasing.

Stop trying to manipulate your miracle

When you get to a place where you truly appreciate the value of the meanwhile seasons, it will slow you down enough to experience the peace of God. Sometimes, we over-exert ourselves chasing the worthwhile moment, forgetting that God has already prepared and reserved it for us. It’s not going anywhere. The quicker we stop trying to manipulate our miracle into being, the quicker we will realise that several miracles are happening along the way. I also like to think that the more we settle into our trust in God, the easier it is for counterfeit ‘worthwhile desires’ to fall away as we grow in Him. God is not a man that would lie, change His mind or play with our emotions. Whatever we lay at His feet He turns around for our good. A version of good so far beyond what we could have ever imagined. My encouragement to you is to stop striving and lean into Him.

Your worthwhile is coming. It has your name written on it in big bold red letters. God wants you to look your very best when you get to that moment, so in the meanwhile, He would like to sit with you, as you look yourself over in the mirror and fix anything that is out of place. He knows how long you have dreamed about and prayed for that moment, and He wants you to have it more than you do. He also wants you to have everything you need for it to truly be worthwhile.