This Season of Waiting

Yesterday I had the privilege of babysitting Seth, my two-year-old grandson, for a good part of the day. One of the things he asked, after we had done the customary first activity of bringing out the toys from their storage area in the guest room to the playing area in the living room, was for Grandma to get him the hockey game. 

This would involve me going to the basement and hauling the tabletop hockey game up the stairs to the living room floor. Since Grandpa Ken has kneeled on the carpet there to teach his grandson some puck passing and shooting skills in the past, Seth figures this is where a hockey game is meant to be played with one's grandparents.

I wanted to be sure to slow down and directly spend time with my grandson throughout the day, but I also had work beckoning me to the kitchen right then. I needed to get a start on supper preparations for guests coming that evening, so I asked Seth to wait awhile until I was ready to get the game and "play hockey" with him. 

Pointing to the kitchen clock, I said, "In about half an hour, Grandma will go get the hockey game for you. At ten o'clock. See the big hand? When it gets up to the very top, it will be time to play hockey." I moved a little closer to the clock and made a motion in the air, my finger following the numbers to show the minute hand moving toward the 12. 

Seth seemed to understand my plan enough to be okay with playing by himself in the living room while I began cooking. Soon, though, he wandered back out to the kitchen and informed me that Grandma was going downstairs to get the hockey game. 

"Yes, at ten o'clock," I assured him. I pointed to the clock again and said that the big hand will go up, up, up to the top, and then I would be ready to get the game and play with him. At that point, he went over and climbed up on a kitchen chair to sit down and wait in view of the clock. That didn't last too long, and soon he was back in the living room to play.

Thus began a pattern of him restating to himself or to me that Grandma was getting the game at ten o'clock, me assuring him that ten o'clock was when the big hand got up to the top, him watching the clock for a bit, me telling him it will take awhile, and him going back to his occupying himself with other activities. 

Finally the big hand got to the top, after even I was reminded of how slowly a watched clock hand progresses, and Grandma & Seth could go get the hockey game. I held his hand as we traipsed down the steps to the rec room in the basement. While I was pulling the game out from its abode under the ping pong table, Seth noticed the toybox down there, and began loading his hands with dinkies to take upstairs along with the hockey game.

I got the game situated upstairs in the living room but we didn't even play right then. Seth had discovered a new interest. I helped him unearth some more little vehicles from the tangled heap in the downstairs toybox to bring upstairs. 

He gathered his dinkies into a pile on the kitchen floor and began playing with them, lining them up and organizing them in various ways. Later on, we did actually play some hockey together in the living room, but until then he was content to play with his vehicles at my feet while I worked in the kitchen.

Afterward, I thought about Seth's way of waiting and I compared it to my own waiting in this season of Advent. The meaning of Advent is "The arrival of a notable person, thing, or event." In Christian theology it is "The coming or second coming of Christ." 

I know that Christ, the Notable Person, has come; God promised to give us Jesus, and He did. I know that Christ is coming the second time: God promised He will come again to bring us to Himself. I don't know when "the big hand will reach the top" and I sometimes I get impatient for Him to show up. I remind Him of His plan. Sometimes I sit and watch the clock instead of being occupied in His business, going about contented with simply knowing He has promised.

Sometimes when He does show up in my life, it looks different than I was expecting. I find there are delights to be discovered in Him during the waiting, and during the fulfilment of His promises, even if they are very different than my expectations. 

Whether in the waiting for Him to come or in the times of His showing up unexpectedly, I want to learn the contented joy of  "playing at His feet."