“Unanswered Yet?”

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Unanswered yet. If any of your prayers fit that description, you might relate when I say I have a love-hate relationship with this hymn. Each verse breathes hope into your soul. And then two words deflate it. They’re not intended to, but when sometime, somewhere is a horizon you can’t see any better now than you could fifteen years ago, it’s hard to be encouraged by any promises waiting on it.

Many years ago, I was introduced to this inspirational (?) thought. Even clear back then, I’d been waiting long enough it seemed to apply.

Joseph waited 13 years.
Abraham waited 25 years.
Moses waited 40 years.
Jesus waited 30 years.
If God is making you wait, you're in good company.

I know that’s supposed to be comforting, but all I hear is, “If God is making you wait, you, too, could be looking at another fifteen years before anything happens.”

Or fifty-something years if I want to “encourage” myself with how long Sarah waited. That one gets me right in the gut. “Sarah was 90 when she had a baby. If you’re still waiting for children…take heart?”

Why are these stories of God’s perfect plans and incredible power so incredibly disheartening? Why do all those waiting greats of the Bible spark despair instead of hope?

Because of this little thing we call the meantime.

Wow, was that ever appropriately named.

Where’s the Meaning in the Meantime?

The last entry I wrote in my journal before my ever-unchanging life sapped all the heart out of recording my day-to-day monotony said something to the effect that I wasn’t afraid I’d never have the blessings I desired. There were enough impressions from heaven through the years to believe they were coming. What terrified me was how long they might take to get here.

It still does. Because if a remaining five or fifty years of meantime are as mean as all the meantime that has passed so far, if all that stretches between now and sometime, somewhere is more of this heartache that cuts so deep the pain is almost physical, more stagnation, loneliness, lack of purpose, more surviving but still no living–that prospect warrants a small panic attack, and I’ve had a few.

It wouldn’t be so grim if something didn’t have to wait for sometime, somewhere. Sarah at least had Abraham while she waited for Isaac, and Jesus may have waited thirty years to start his ministry, but he was about his Father’s business at twelve.

Isn’t there just a tiny slice of the cake I can eat while I wait? Can’t I be about some useful business in the meantime instead of sitting here growing moss?

It has seemed that having one part of my life on hold has put it all on hold. Missing one thing has taken my heart out of everything. If I’ve wearied God with prayers for sometime, somewhere to finally be here and now, I’ve wearied him even more with pleas for something to bring me back to life in the meantime. For meaning in the meantime. People who wait need meaning in the meantime.

The Impasse of the Meantime

Mark Twain said, “The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

A meaningful life is one where you not only know that why but can act on it.

I’ve had my why tied up pretty tight in everything that’s still in the hands of sometime, somewhere. I was born a woman, divinely designed to be a wife and mother, and since I haven’t been able to act on that, life has felt pretty meaningless.

But those roles aren’t my why. They’re under the umbrella of my why, which, briefly defined, is to live a life that adds value to other people’s. That, to me, is a life with a purpose. Being a wife and mother is a tremendous opportunity to do that. But not the only one.

So my search for meaning has been a search to do something with my life that offers strength. Hope. Encouragement.

Here’s the problem. You know those pre-flight instructions we all mostly ignore where they tell you to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others?

The meantime is not a very oxygen-rich environment, and I haven’t had a mask to put on. Consumed with the effort it takes to just keep breathing, I’ve been stuck between a desire to be useful and this burgeoning impasse where it seems the only way I’ll ever be any good to anyone is if I can get to sometime, somewhere. Where the oxygen is.

In other words, my only hope of finding meaning in the meantime is to not be in the meantime anymore.

It’s a frustrating conundrum, and I don’t have any answers. Life seems to be a Russian doll of meantimes. One leads to another leads to another leads to another.

But that also means life is a Russian doll of sometimes and somewheres.

Maybe we arrive at more of them than we realize.

The hard part is recognizing them when we do. And appreciating them when they’re only part of a whole that’s still so incomplete.

Understanding the Meaning in the Meantime

My search for meaning brought me to this blog. If I could ever get enough oxygen to act on it, I wanted to be a voice of hope from the battlefield. The voice I’ve so often needed for myself. Not the voice that was spared the battlefield and cheers from the sidelines that God is good. That voice grates a little on people who weren’t spared. I’m talking about the voice that says God is good with sword in hand, armor battle-dented, and wounds still bleeding.

I wanted to write a blog where pain was real, valid, and acknowledged. But not fed. I didn’t want my experiences to fester on the page. I wanted them to cry, “Onward!”

But the Battle of the Meantime had killed all the “Onward!” in me. Waiting for marriage, then waiting for oxygen so I could be useful while I waited for marriage–I went to bed one night last March convinced I had nothing to offer and couldn’t give it even if I had it.

I woke up the next morning determined to blog.

Sometime, somewhere had arrived, at least for that layer of the doll. Unanswered yet was answered. There was a fire in my heart that had been cold for a long time. That I was pretty sure would stay cold until I got married. A purpose. Maybe I finally had one.

Now, nearly a year later, I find myself in the next layer of the doll where I’m not sure what this meaning means or where it’s going. The journey has been good, but not what I envisioned. So now I’m praying to understand the meaning in the meantime. Why it’s been so fulfilling and still so not enough.

Why I’m so impossible to satisfy.

My Honest Answer

There was an exercise in the math book I took my kindergarteners through every year where they had to identify the top, middle, and bottom. Circle the picture on bottom with green, circle the picture on top with red, circle the picture in the middle with yellow.

I’m not proud to admit it, but I lost it with one little girl over that exercise because it was so simple and she did. Not. Get. It. At all. Either the concept or the instructions or both would not compute.

God is love, and love is patient, love is kind. But I wonder if he sometimes has the urge to strangle me for the same reason. “I answered this. I answered that. I’m answering this. Why can’t you see what I’m doing? What more do you want from me?!”

I think the honest answer is I still just want the outermost layer of my Russian doll. The first and biggest desire that led to all these meantimes. I don’t want to be in any meantime anymore. I want to be there.

But if what God gives me here is never enough, will what he gives me there be enough? Will there be a there there?

I have more questions than answers. More struggle than peace. I don’t know if you’ll be able to call this post a voice of hope because however lost you might be on the sea of unanswered yet, I’m right there with you.

I can only tell you what I hope is happening within all these layers of experience and confusion.

Keep the Spirit Burning There

I hope the company I’ve shared this wait with–Joseph, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth–is an indication that God has a beautiful purpose for me. Sometime. Somewhere.

I hope I’ll find when I reach that outermost sometime, somewhere that the meantimes in between have been kinder than I thought. I hope they’ll have built enough character, burned enough dross, and grown enough faith that there can be a there there. That all this meantime hasn’t been waiting for the answer. It has been the answer. I asked for marriage. God gave me the experience to build a strong one. I asked for children. God gave me the experience to raise them well. I asked for purpose. God gave me something to offer.

“The work began when first your prayer was uttered.”

Maybe the meantime is that work.

Thank you for reading. Whether anything from my experience helps you get your feet under you in the sea of unanswered yet, I hope it at least encourages you to keep swimming. Leave a comment if these words have spoken to your heart and pass this post along.

If this resonates with you, these might too:

I Surrender All

Making Peace With God’s Delays

Divine Delay: A Tale of Love That’s Older Than Time

“Unanswered Yet?” Lyrics

Words by F.G. Burroughs
Music by Charles D. Tillman

Unanswered yet? The prayer your lips have pleaded
In agony of heart these many years?
Does faith begin to fail, is hope departing,
And think you all in vain those falling tears?
Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer;
You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere,
You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Though when you first presented
This one petition at the Father's throne,
It seemed you could not wait the time of asking,
So urgent was your heart to make it known.
Though years have passed since then, do not despair;
The Lord will answer you, sometime, somewhere,
The Lord will answer you, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet: Nay, do not say ungranted;
Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done; 
The work began when first your prayer was uttered,
And God will finish what he has begun.
If you will keep the spirit burning there,
His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere,
His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered;
Her feet were firmly planted on the rock;
Amid the wildest storm prayer stands undaunted,
Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock.
She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer,
And cries, "It shall be done," sometime, somewhere,
And cries, "It shall be done," sometime, somewhere.

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