Worth Waiting For

Last weekend I had a Zoom chat with my parents, as we usually do on weekends. For them it is Friday evening, for us Saturday morning. Our chat time came around and I got on Zoom. No Mom and Dad. I sent them an email at the 10 minute mark, telling them I'd wait around on Zoom for them to show up. They did show up, an hour later than I expected. We had a nice conversation, cleared up the Daylight Savings Time nonsense, and said goodbye until next week.

The next day I got a short reply from my mother:

Dear Rob,  thanks for being patient with us.  We will try for next week at 7 (for us).

Love,

Mom

I replied in an overly sentimental way, perhaps, saying that they are always worth waiting for. But upon further reflection, it seemed that I understated The Truth:

I will never be able to balance out the waiting scales between me and my Mom or Dad, much less both of them together: the long months of waiting for a baby to arrive, the patience required for potty training, teaching them to eat by themselves and clean themselves and dress themselves, waiting and watching as they learn to do homework, waiting to see their grades, waiting while they are at music lessons or choir practice or birthday parties, waiting for them to drive home by themselves the first time, then waiting for them to come home at night after you want to sleep but can't because of the waiting, waiting for college acceptance letters and scholarship notifications, waiting five years for a four year undergraduate degree, waiting for letters from overseas, waiting for them to find a good match and hoping that it works out, waiting for grandchildren, and waiting for visits that come too infrequently.

All I can do is pay it forward to my children and be thankful to them.

That is how I imagine God's love for me, and for all of us: God waiting patiently for us to understand that all God wants for us is to pay that patience forward.