I continue to think about the practice of waiting—both because of the season of Advent, which is uniquely set as a Gospel of Waiting, and because I find myself in my own period of waiting. Now, I don’t mind the idea of patience; I have never found terrible difficulty in the practice of delayed gratification. But I do struggle with waiting when I have no control on the outcome. The concept of awaiting a verdict, perhaps. Even when I can be satisfied with having done all I am able to do, I can not get past the angst and the guilty feeling of wondering how it will turn out. Having sorted out my own feelings and decided what should be done, there is still the anticipation of that “final verdict.” I have a number of different feelings about what could happen. There is an emotion for every outcome: fear and grief for those less favorable, hope and joy for the ones that turn out how I’d like, and some sense of solace for the possibilities that lie in between. The trouble is, each feeling wants the lion’s share—it would be easier to let one take over and to assume that the correlating outcome will happen. But this does not, unfortunately, serve me. I would be closing myself off to the other possibilities. If I chose to accept the worst case scenario, I may not be able to treat the situation correctly if it turns out better than expected--I may close myself off to life. On the other hand, should I expect that it will all go my way, how greatly I will be crushed when it does not prove to be so! So I must hold them all at bay, hold them all in tension. Each day, I lean towards a different feeling.
It is a terrible thing to experience, the ups and downs of hope and despair. John Green discussed this idea in an interview, saying that “Despair is so powerful because it tells this complete, holistic story. It explains everything. Everything is the way it is because everything and everyone sucks.” Sometimes, it can feel easier to accept that there is no point and that every good thing is meaningless than to struggle against reality with a hope and a faith that believes that redemption is possible, but not guaranteed. He goes on to say, “[This mindset of despair] just happens to not be true. And so I have to remind myself of that every day.” For me, none of these ideas and expectations that I have imagined are true. Life never works out in a way that I can prepare for. All I can do is my best—to look with compassion and humility towards whatever I find myself facing.
It hurts. But I know, that for the sake of my heart, it is the right thing to do. And I wonder if this is how Jesus felt in the Garden, still hoping that the cup would be taken from him.