Great anticipation.

This year for Christmas Adam and I took the plunge deeper into the enticing world of Apple and purchased an iPod for our soon to be eight year old daughter Madison. She had been begging us for the last few years and the thought of her not taking our phones for hours on end to provide background music for her latest dance routines sounded pretty darn good to us.

Madison's face on Christmas day was amazing -- like mouth wide open, jaw dropped, eyes open wide amazing.  Even though we fully recognize that love is not shown through material things, this kid deserved it and we wanted her to know that.  Three weeks or so later, she is still going strong in her passion for this little hand held device.  But the crazy thing is she doesn't actually use it in the way we thought she would.

One her favorite things to do is use the calculator and set the timer and alarm.  Crazy right?  I'm sure she is destined to become sort of genius -- maybe.  The other night she begged and begged me to set her alarm on her iphone so she could wake up to it.  But of course the next morning she woke up way before her alarm was set to go off.  She was so incredibly excited about that alarm, she couldn't even sleep.

When she got up she kept asking me the time every few minuets or so.  I offered her breakfast and she refused and rather said she was going to go back to her room.  What in the world?  This kid never stays in her room -- she's one of those roll out of bed, half asleep and stumbles out the the living room type kids.

Here's the deal.  She was living in high anticipation of that alarm. She new it was coming and didn't want to miss out on her favorite song she programed to play.  She's smart enough to know that she could simply just turn off her alarm and play her song -- but no -- she patiently waited and waited and waited until BAM the alarm went off.

She came out of her room with the biggest smile on her face.  She had received her reward.  This kid knew exactly what she wanted and waited it out for the perfect time and the perfect place.

I learn more spiritual truths from observing my children than the countless hours sitting in a church building.

God's timing is so perfect. We so often seek out short cuts, we long to turn off the timer and sometimes are so tempted to hit the snooze over and over again.  But, there is something to be said about that time of anticipation, when we choose to embrace the truth and make the choice to simply believe that when we can't hear God that he indeed hears us and when we can't see the hand of God that he is hard at work organizing and orchestrating the most beautiful story ever.

As our family seeks, searches, longs for and waits for our new little one to join our family I want to live in that same anticipation as Madison.  I want to be excited because his ways are good and perfect and in the end the most awesome song will play.

Some situations are easier than others to wait on God.  Some wait for healing and others wait understanding of horrific situations life has handed them to endure.  Adam and I are in a unique situation because we have walked through both and we can say with full confidence that his ways are so very good.

Never stop trusting.

Never stop hoping.

Never stop living in great anticipation.