“Wilmington next!” the conductor announced as he moved through the train car. My stop wasn’t Wilmington. But a quick look at the time on my phone allowed me to see we were making good time. Because my stop was after Wilmington, I still had about an hour left to keep reading…or take a quick nap after a long day of walking, eating, and meeting in DC.
I have taken the train from Philadelphia to Washington DC often enough to know that when they announce a station as next there’s still a bit of a gap before what is next. There’s typically anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes between the station we are pulling out of and the station that is next. The announcement is helpful. If your stop is next, the announcement gives you adequate time to gather your things and prepare yourself for your stop. However, by no means does next stop mean now stop, and honestly it doesn’t even mean soon stop (unless soon for you averages 40 minutes. My soon is closer to 5-10 minutes). It means anticipate, prepare, but keep waiting. In all of my years of this familiar route, I’ve never seen anyone try to leap off of the train because no matter how quickly or loudly the next stop was announced, it had not yet arrived. We waited, we prepared, we watched, we listened.
What if we did the same with grace? What if we encountered grace often enough to use our grit in any given season of our lives to wait, watch, prepare, and listen? To fuel the flame of expectation and ground ourselves in the hope, the knowing, the faith, that what is for us is still next? What if we didn’t leap off the train of our lives because the promotion, graduation, marriage, child, business expansion, home ownership was 5 or 10 or 15 years out as opposed to 2 or 4 years out?
I’m learning that if I let it, grace, will work with me in the wait, making the wait completely worth it. It will use the time to prepare me, to teach me, to help me offload the unnecessary. If I don’t let it, I will use the time to give way to anxiety, second guessing, doubt, ruminating, comparison, discontent, angst, anger, resentment, spite, or unwise decisions. I will forget the purposefulness in the route to my destination. When those train tracks were laid between cities, there was a purpose in mind. There is a reason the tracks lay where they do and the trains travel at the speed that they do. It was not happenstance or on the whim of the want of one person. Grace reminds us that the good plan God has mapped out for our lives was and is always purposeful, never on a whim, never out of neglect or forgetfulness, never a game where He wins and we lose.
I remember the first time I was traveling to DC and Baltimore was announced as next. In my mind we were ahead of schedule and I would arrive to DC earlier than I expected. I was more than okay to have extra time in the city. Until….we were running up on 45 minutes before we pulled into Baltimore. I spent those 45 minutes annoyed, mentally rushing the train, wondering how in the world, and why in the world it was taking so long? It wasn’t taking so long. I just had no idea that the announcement did not mean 15 minutes. It didn’t even mean 30 minutes. It meant 45 minutes and meant that I would arrive in DC at the time I anticipated, at the time on my ticket. I got off the train in DC still slightly annoyed. My emotions had been played with. I got my hopes up for nothing and I spent 45 minutes anxiously anticipating, instead of being able to trust the process, enjoy the ride, and be grateful for the heads up. Let’s just say on the ride back I rolled my eyes as they announced the first couple of stops, noticed how far apart each stop was, and paid attention to the time on my ticket for my estimated arrival home.
Grace keeps the pace for what we need and where we need to be in life. Grace keeps us between stops, reminds us to wait, to prepare, to watch, and to listen.
My hope for you this week is that you allow yourself to wait, prepare, watch, and listen. That you accept next as next and understand your now. That you resist the temptation to rush, reject the idea that you are behind, missing out, lacking, need to do more or try harder. That you trust grace has you right on track and right on time.
With Love,
Grit + Grace