Not Yet

***Rant Alert***

Not yet.

I seem to be hearing a lot of that lately, and it SHOULD be encouraging.  After all, “not yet” doesn’t mean “not at all.”  It leaves the door open for hope….for a lot of hope, really.  It means God is still working on something His word promises is good.  But when you desperately want to be at home with your babies while they are babies, when you know that the days of chubby feet, smooth skin, and first steps are racing by in an impossible rush to adulthood, when you know (because every single person over the age of sixty constantly reminds you) that you can’t get these days back, and you are spending them in a haze of exhaustion while those babies sit in daycare…”net yet” sure does suck.  When am I going to get the chance to devote my best self to my kids?  When they’re in college and never want to call because after all, I did regularly dose them up with Motrin and take them to daycare because I didn’t have any sick days?  When the class party stage is over and mom is the contemporary equivalent of a person with leprosy?  When they are in school all day anyway?  I mean, yes Anna got to see Jesus…right before she died of old age.  My hope kind of has an expiration date, so if I’m waiting that long, why bother hoping?  For me right now, “not yet” feels just like “never”. 

I am trying hard to be grateful.  To be faithful.  To remember that I don’t have God’s perspective, just like my children don’t have mine.  To lean into his promises, even though I can’t see even a tiny glimmer that they are true. 

It still sucks.