waiting.

Waiting hurts.

Waiting helps.

It's a frustrating paradox.

God refines me in the wait,
but the pain is still there.

Today, Elisabeth Elliot's words are encouraging me, especially these two quotes:

I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.

Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts.

My will would be to have us there in Uganda with our newest three children or, at least, having the proper HIV treatment available for and administered to our dear one with the virus.

God is telling me to wait.

And while I'd love to close this post with some encouraging conclusion, this is all I've got: Waiting is hard.