As I’m trying to change my situation and work to get onto something better, there’s a lot of waiting involved. Waiting is HARD. There’s so much unknown as you wait for things happen.

For me personally, I think waiting can produce one of two things. It can produce a bitter person who has grown so tired of waiting. Or it can produce results worth waiting for!

I feel I have gotten to experience both of these things. There were times when I was bitter about having to wait. I’m not a patient person naturally. I want things to happen quickly. But as I am coming into a place where I can see the results, I realize it was so worth it.

Waiting tests you, and I don’t just mean your patience. It tests your will, your resolve, your anxiety, and your determination, to name a few. It can be so easy to give in or not wait things out. It can be so heartbreaking and crushing when doors are slammed in your face. It wears on you and absolutely takes a toll. It is so easy to get discouraged in the waiting process.

However, I think there are two kinds of waiting. There is passive waiting and active waiting. Passive waiting is what most people think of when they think of “waiting.” It’s the idea of twiddling your thumbs, waiting for news, and not trying to change anything. It’s staying stagnant as you let decisions come to you.

The other side of it is active waiting. Active waiting, to me, is controlling what you can and working on other things while still being hopeful for the original thing you were waiting for. Life doesn’t go on hold just because you are waiting for something. I was in the midst of waiting for other things while I did the event for my business a few weekends ago. I am still in the waiting period. But that doesn’t mean that all things have to stop. Sure, certain things go on pause, but I’m still actively involved in my own life. Life is going to happen either way. I can either miss out on it (and trust me I have) or I can be involved.

I like to plan things, but I’ll be the first to say that my plans don’t always work. Sometimes other plans take over, or things derail the plans I make. Having plans isn’t a bad thing. But being so strictly rigid with those plans can be a bad thing. Sometimes plans require waiting to work out properly.

I don’t talk about my faith often on here. But in this period of waiting, my faith has grown stronger. I’m learning to listen in the wait time. Things haven’t worked out the first time because God has something better planned for me. Even though I know that to be true, it still makes the waiting process hard. I want things to work out. I know that I am at the end of a few chapters in my life, and I am ready to move on. But I need to wait to finish the page before I can continue. The story is going to turn out better that way.

I mentioned in my last post about the phrase “The light at the end of the tunnel is not the train.” I want to expand more on that because that is something that has been getting me through since December. For a while, I couldn’t even see any light in the tunnel I was in. It was a lot of waiting and taking steps that I couldn’t see. I had no idea when the tunnel would end. That was one of the darkest times of my life for a lot of reasons. I honestly can’t tell you what happened most of November to February. The only option was to wait because that tunnel was not getting any brighter. But I really started working through things in March that finally started making the waiting worth it. I started to see the light again, and I was able to make the waiting worthwhile. I’m not completely out of the tunnel yet, but things are so much brighter than they were three months ago. And now, I have single digit days left of the school year. I never thought I’d make it, but in that active waiting, the days have gone.

I don’t say that for you to pity. Truthfully, that’s the last thing I ever want. I say that because I don’t think I’m alone. It may be totally different scenarios than what I went through (I hope for your sake that that’s the case because no one else should have to go through what I did), but I think maybe you relate. Or you know someone that can relate. Even though our situations may not be exactly the same, we all face similar situations and emotions. No one truly walks alone.

So even though this post is short, I hope there’s something you can take away from all this. Be actively involved in your life, even if you’re in the waiting. Things will work out as they should, and maybe even better than you planned.