Voices in the Waiting....

 

I am sitting in a waiting room, almost bored out of my mind, when I realise that i really haven't done this in a long time..waited, i mean. I haven't sat in silence in a room with little to no stimulation and waited for events outside of my control to take place so that I can move on to the next stage. This probably explains why there hasn't been a post on here since the beginning of the year.

This waiting room is quiet but not completely silent. The cashier can still be heard attending to a customer and close to the queue, a five year old is being chided by her mother for trying to collect all the bacteria off the room's surfaces with her body, a couple who serendipitously realised they are on the same bus are catching up in the corner and next to me i hear the rhythmic breathing of the teenage boy next to me. There are also sounds coming from outside, the loud hooting of cars, people hollering at each other in the streets and the screeching of brakes is faintly audible in this room, but not enough to disturb the quiet and calm of the inside. I realise these are sounds that exist everyday but are never paid attention to because I have never had to wait.

I should admit that I do not like waiting. Every moment of my life is filled with activity, intentionally or otherwise. Waiting tends to feel like losing control or being left behind. Like life is going on without me which, for someone who has spent the entirety of their life trying to earn their existence, is a reason to panic and despair.  But today in the waiting room I feel like forgetting about the life that is happening on the outside and listening to what is going on inside of me. At the surface, there is the slight stinging sensation inside my nostrils that has been caused by the heat and dust outside. Or maybe it's all the crying.

 The silence and calm triggers me to search for what else I can hear on the inside of me. At the surface I can hear the panic and the shame  reminding me of my mistake this morning. It's been over 4 hours since I  had to explain that I missed my bus but the shame storm is still as fresh as it was at 7:45 this morning. It's hard to hear anything else above it and it has the effect of bringing up all my inadequacies and past failures along with it. The voices point me across the room to the young girl who looks about my age and seems to have her life in order. I pat my undone afro as I catch sight of her neatly done braids and I feel like hiding my fingernails as I watch her perfectly manicured ones type away at her iPhone. I don't need to look at my cracked android model to understand the message that I clearly am way below the standard. In dismay I allow the voice to continue denigrating me. It calls into question everything from my skewed spectacles that I haven't had the money to change in 5 years to the clothes I am wearing. I want to think I have never felt this low, but I think I always have, I have just never been quiet enough to realise it and now that I do I want to apologise for my existence, although I am not quite sure to who exactly.

The quiet also makes me realise that I feel something else, something more dangerous. That beneath the shame and pathetic apologies is a layer of bubbling rage. I am not only ashamed about my existence and everything I am not, I am also angry. See, I know the One who could have made all this go away and given me a perfect life. How could He allow the girl opposite me to enjoy the good life and deprive me? How could he let me experience the shame of telling both my mother and boss that I, a 25 year old woman, failed to catch a simple bus? How could he let me live through all that lack I experienced the past few months? I realise that I actually do blame Him for everything. If I could go on a mountain and scream at the sky He made I would. The reality that I have had a very impossible few months and knowing Him has not made it easier comes crashing on me and it's all I can do not to start bawling my eyes out next to that scrawny teenage boy.

Does God not love me?

Do you not love me, God?

I remember how at the beginning of the year, I made an agreement with Him that because I am just a girl and there are things I simply cannot do without Him, he is going to be my dad now and although my experience with those has never really been good, I trust him to teach me what it's like to be Fathered by a present and loving father. And then I realise that one thing that loving Fathers do is do what is best for their daughters, even if their daughters do not see it that way. I realise also that for the past few months I've been playing tug-of-war with Him, deciding for myself how and when He should show up in my life and throwing tantrums when He did not. I haven't been patient enough to listen and allow Him to be my dad because deep down there is this innate fear that if I leave it all in his hands, he will let me down.

"Because the world has let you down, abandoned and rejected you, you think that I too, am looking to make you let your guard down only to deprive you."

In the waiting, amongst the internal screaming and chaos I hear His voice.  What He says makes me want to curl away in shame once again because it is true. Deep down in my heart I have difficulty in allowing Him to be the thing I desire Him to be the most- my Dad. But His voice does not allow shame to settle in my heart but floods it with endless waves of grace instead.

"I love you. And I am going to show you how to be my daughter. It's okay if you have not quite figured it out yet. I am here for as long as it takes. I will make it all okay, you'll see."

This voice. The voice of love, of hope, of grace, of a Father. This is the voice that makes all of it worthwhile. The years of struggling financially and relationally and the embarrassing emotional outbursts. The endless wait for buses and boyfriends and BA degrees. The failure and shame and inadequacies none of it means anything  when I hear the voice of my Dad telling me it is all going to be okay.

He is going to make it all okay.