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I am going through a fun season. I get up early in the morning, sit on my red sofa and go shopping. The things I need at 4AM are many and I indulge in every single one of them. For some reason, the glory of a new morning somehow equates to the glory of new pretty. But the new pretty isn’t what is the most fun. The really exciting piece of the process is the anticipation of its arrival. Oh, how I love receiving the email saying, “Your package has been delivered.” Five little words which set my heart flying. Five little words telling me the wait is over and a hope has been fulfilled. A message letting me know something wanted is waiting for me is one of my life’s highs.

I know waiting. I know wishing safe travels as it comes home to me. I know the anticipation of something wanted arriving right on the front porch. I know the celebration of welcoming a new something into the front door. I know opening it up and sitting in the joy of something new. I am not alone. At some point we all know what it is like to wait in hope.

There is a sweet relief when something we have hoped for arrives. Sometimes pretties ordered through the mail tell our story. We have identified something we need or want. Perhaps it is a healing, perhaps it is a friend, perhaps it is joy, perhaps it is serenity, perhaps it is forgiveness, perhaps it is a new start. We have waited and we have hoped for its safe delivery. Some of us wait a long time for its arrival. We wonder if it will ever come. In some ways we even make peace with the fact it may never arrive. Waiting is not for a weak constitution. Waiting is not our favorite thing, very few of us are good at it. We want delivery at this moment and if we had any say over it, we would dictate exactly how it be delivered to us.

Waiting is one thing. Waiting with hope is quite another. Hope allows us a faith it will arrive exactly when it is needed. Hope allows us to know our needs and our wants will not cripple us. Hope makes the anticipation a joy. Hope makes the waiting bearable. How well have you married hope to waiting? While we often think of hope and waiting as something we envision for the future, it helps if we look in our present. When my mind looks far into the coming days, I begin to get fearful. All the “what ifs” pop up and I begin to bed down with the worst parts of myself. I know I must quit living in the future and move back to right here and right now. When I find myself living in fear, I ask myself one question. “Tracy, do you have everything you need right at this moment?” The answer is always, always “yes I do.” If you ask yourself often enough you begin to live where you are meant to live, in the now. If you ask yourself this often enough your faith increases with every yes. And the answer is always yes.

Waiting in hope brings delight. Waiting without hope will wear on a soul. We get to choose. I hope your present will be full of knowing you have exactly what you need to get to the next moment. I hope with every acknowledgment your faith grows. I hope the delivery of your pretties brings a delightful joy. But this I surely know: just when you need it, you’ll find it on the porch waiting for you, you’ll welcome it in the front door, you’ll sit in the joy of something new. Your package has indeed been delivered.