TWIU Episode 16: Don’t Waste Your Wait

re: What's up, Warriors? I hope that you are well and that you have been just putting in the work to thrive. As always, that is always my hope, my desire, my prayer for you. Because it's hard. Okay? Let's not fake like it's not hard. It's hard. Okay? It is. Life is hard. Even when we're not dealing with this particular journey, life is hard. And I believe that God intends for us to thrive in the heart. Okay. God intends for us to be successful in the heart. God intends for us to evolve in the heart. Okay. So we're gonna talk a little bit more about that in today's episode. Let's get into it. So, I don't want this to be a super long episode. I just want to focus a little bit on The one thing that we are always doing in this journey to parenthood, and that is waiting. Okay. At all times, we're always waiting until we're on the other side. I do like to have some scriptures for certain episodes, and the two there are two that fell into my spirit for this episode. The verse is gonna come from Proverbs 13 and 12, and the whole verse is critical, but we must focus on the first half of that. The first half of this verse. And it reads: Hope deferred makes the heart sick. This is so true. I don't know if you're like me, and just to go back a little bit, if you've if you watched the last episode or listened to the last episode, I wrapped up that episode talking about how we have to speak live over ourselves in this waiting journey. Because at all times, It is the enemy's desire to kill, steal and destroy at all times. Even if we weren't on this particular journey, that's always the enemy's goal, okay? And so we have to be vigilant. at all times. We cannot let up. We have to always be ready so that we never have to get ready, right? So that the the enemy never can catch up catch us off guard. And Going back to hope, deferred makes the heart sick. When I was in the earlier parts of my journey, my hope was in the thing, right? My hope was in the baby, my hope was in the pregnancy, my hope was in the positive pregnancy tests, okay? And of course, When month after month you don't get that, your hope dwindles. I don't know about you, but that was the case for me. My hope dwindled, right? It was getting less and less likely that I was going to be getting my desired outcome, right? And month after month, year after year, when that is the case, right? When it's not what you desire. You're sad. You're more than sad, you're hurt. You're your your your words and emotions and feelings that we typically don't have the words to even describe. Like it's just sorrow filled, right? And your heart is hurting, right? My heart was hurting. When that was my view, my heart was hurting. My heart was heavy, right? And I never felt just settled or an ease. I I just felt heavy, right, and burdened down when that was my when that was my view and that was my perspective. And so I'm talking about hope right now. Because hope is critical for the waiting, right? Because we're always waiting, the goal, right, to thrive in this journey, which is the primary desire for why we created the warrior in us, right? Or why I believe the Lord gave the warrior in us to us is so that we can thrive in every phase, place, space in this journey, right? We're not meant to just be sitting here waiting. Like, if we think back to some of our biblical examples, Abraham was supposed to be doing more than waiting, right? Elizabeth and Zachariah, they were supposed to be doing more than just waiting, right? Everybody has something to do. It's not that you just sit here and mope and wait, right, and do nothing. No. because when we stay stagnant like that, which there are times when we are there. That's There are times when you're there in this journey, okay? And when we say stagnant, we put ourselves in a position for our hope to be low, right, and our heart to be sick. And so we have to or I encourage us all to implement these disciplines, right? Disciplines to help us get in the habit of waiting well, right? We I told you in the past, pe previous episode, right? Sometimes it's just hard. Sometimes you just don't have it. But I believe we have to set a baseline for ourselves. That is what came to me in this last week or two. It's like we have to set a baseline for ourselves. Like we have to have a regular, like what is a normal everyday for you, right? Like for me, a normal everyday for me to to be well, to be in a place where I I can thrive in my waiting and consist of multiple different things in my day. But I certainly need to be in my word. I need to be getting scripture deep down in there. And sometimes you may read a whole chapter, and some days you may read just the scripture, just a verse, but you gotta get something because I was working through my Sunday school lesson yesterday, and it was just good to be reminded of. What the word says, right? Especially what the word says about who God is. And when we come to understand scripture better, and when we know who God is, for me, okay, I'll talk about myself. For me, that is what helped my hope to shift. I had to shift the ways that I was looking at hope. Because there was another definition of how I that that I thought was good and I I think it came from Dr. Anita Phillips and she says, Hope is the belief that it's gonna happen for yourself, right? that that that God's gonna do it for you, right? Faith is that God can do it, period. And hope is that God is gonna do it for you. but It can't for me, it couldn't be that God is gonna do the pregnancy for me, like that God is gonna make me the mother, right? Like God is gonna give me my expected in. It's that it had to shift, right? That no, if it's God's will, right? If God promised me this, it's done. But I can't wait for the promise, right? Abraham waited twenty-five years. Now I prayed. God, I'm not waiting no twenty-five years. But I can't be sick in the heart for twenty-five years. No. So my whole pack to shift to being in the truth that God is faithful. God is the same today, yesterday, and forevermore. And God will never fail. Right? So it it's just the truths that I had to that I needed to get ingrained in me. And I continue to ingrain these truths in me about who God is so that So that I build myself up, right? So that I'm strong in the Lord, so that I'm secure in him, and also to help me to shift where I have my hope. The second half of that scripture it says but But a longing fulfilled is the tree of life. Okay. And another version says that Hope deferred makes the heart sick. And a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. Okay, so if everything or all these good feelings we know is gonna come with the answered desire, right? And Putting that in putting that with the my previous perspective of what hope was, right? My hope was in the outcome, right? I okay it's been eight years, alright. So hmm, no, we cannot thrive if we let our hope be in the baby, if we let our hope be in the positive test, if we let our hope be in the pregnancy, if we let our hope being on the other be in being on the other side of this versus our hope being in Jesus, that wherever this is going. Wherever this is going, Jesus is truth. Jesus is faithful. Jesus loves me. Jesus has a future and a hope for me, right? Like those are the truths that we have to get. ingrained in our ingrained in our spirits. Like it it just has to be that. And when you're trying your best to come out of a place of darkness, right? And you're trying to get to that place of hope. We also have to put ourselves around people that have only hope, right? you can only have room for hope sometimes. And so like I've mentioned before, who you're surrounding yourself with is also gonna matter in this journey. doesn't even mean that you have to always Talk to this person about what's going on. You need people that's praying. You need people that's in their world. You need people that have their own disciplines. Right? So that when you need help, God can send you to help and get you the help that you need. Okay? So anyway, hope is critical to our waiting well. And what I also talked about in in the last episode is who are we becoming? There was something I heard And I don't remember where I heard it, but somebody else said it, and I'm not taking credit for it. but it's it it's God helps us in the going through. God gets the glory, and and God gets the most glory out of who we become in the going through. waiting sucks, and waiting sucks when you're not on this journey to parenthood, right? Waiting just sucks in general in life, and It's hard. It's not easy. It's breeding ground for things like bitterness. Like hopelessness. Like envy. Like jealousy. Like everything that we just don't want to have within us. Right. Waiting is a breeding ground for that. And if we don't have the right things going on and we don't have our attention on the right things, if we're not connected to the right people, then where we find ourselves is in a pit. Where we find ourselves is stagnant, where we find ourselves is not evolving and not growing. I believe that God has a purpose for our waiting, right? In this journey right here, God has a purpose for our waiting. one of the primary things that I have come to learn about myself in my waiting is that and recently now, more more recently, and and it's been more of my focus to To work on it, to work it out, right? Because it needs to be worked out. And that is patience. I really struggle with that. And patience is the fruit of the spirit, right? Okay. It's it's not just something that we need for parenthood. We need that for life. And so I know that okay. work to do there and I got work to do in other places too but I got work to do there and gentleness that's a struggle for me and I don't just want to be a gentle parent. I want to be a a gentle woman. Okay. I want to be a gentle daughter of God. And so these are things that I have to address and work through so that I evolve in my waiting. I want to evolve in my waiting. I don't want to be the same woman that I was eight years ago. when I become or when I have the the prayer, right? I don't wanna be the same woman. I wanna be somebody different, I wanna be somebody better, I wanna be somebody that's evolved, I wanna be somebody that I wanna be who God desires for the me to be at that time, and I don't wanna be who I was way back then. I don't know about you, but I thought about this like if it were up to me, I would have had those kids eight years ago, right? I would have had those kids when I was not as self-aware as I am now. I would have had those kids when I was when I didn't even know what unconditional love actually was, right? And how to actually give that and how to actually practice that. I would I would have had those kids and who would those kids have become? I'm so glad that I don't gotta ever know that. That's all good for me that I don't have to ever know that because I don't want to be a parent who contributes to their child's trauma. Right? Like I don't want to be a contributor to any of the trauma that my child children may experience and go through in this life. I want to be a safe space for them. And in order for them to be a safe, in order for me to be a safe place for them, I have to be a safe place, period. Right? So anyway. We want to be waiting well, and in order to be waiting well, we have to also take a step back out of our circumstances and do some observation, right? Because in order for me to discover that I am really struggling with patience and gentleness. I had to take a step back. You know, Apple has the the live photos, and I was looking back at my photos, okay? I was looking back at my photos and I saw this one live picture and and I I like clicked on it. So I saw this live picture and I clicked on it to to just see what was going on because my face I looked angry. I looked mad. Like and I I I I clicked it to play it and I'm like mmm mmm. I've been struggling. I've been struggling. and I need help. And I want to fix this because I care about who I am today. I care about how I'm showing up and what I'm giving today. Another area that's fallen in my in my heart heavy in my waiting, right? Because I want to thrive. I want to thrive right now in every area and everything. And I don't want to have the fullness of joy when my baby comes. Mm-mm. I want to have the fullness of joy right now because I can, because the fullness of my joy comes from Jesus. I wanted to come from Jesus because the fullness of my joy cannot be connected and attached to anything that I could lose, anything that I don't have any control over. The one thing I do have control over is a relationship that I have with my father, my heavenly father and If my joy is in him, then I ain't gotta wait. Right? So the other thing that's been on my mind and my heart heavy is my worship. Like, I don't want to get the baby for God to get the best worship from me, right? Like the best praise. That will hurt my heart. And I believe God. would give me grace because God is a gracious God. But for myself, I would be sad and I would feel like I offended God by limiting what I was gonna give to him based on if he answered this one thing because He deserves everything that I have to give. Every good worship. The best. He deserves it right now. And I wanna give it to him right now. Like, that's another one of my things that I'm working out as I wait. Like, I I I I want I wanna be given my best worship. And all of these things are critical for waiting well. going back to that little thing about discipline that I mentioned, we have to have a baseline, right, of what is going to put me in the best position to be my best self today? My best self is thriving, okay? So I know that I need to get some scripture in me, right? I need to have some quiet time, right? I need to have some time to Just be still with the Lord. I need to get in a good three to four miles of walking in the morning. I need to first of all have slept well the night before. So I need to have gotten myself in the bed earlier. and these things they these things are not fun, you know, they're they're not glamorous, but they put me in in in a position to be my best self and in the best position to be waiting well. So there are a number of things that we can that we can do to help ourselves as we wait in this time And that is what I believe the message is. All of this journey is waiting. God is glorified in who we become in our waiting. We have to put ourselves in the best position to be our best selves and thrive in the waiting. And that looks like implementing a number of different disciplines to help us out. And critical is getting the truth of who God is, right? Critical is if your hope is in the thing, putting your hope or doing The work to shift your perspective in the giver of the gift, and instead of the gift, so that your hope is not deferred and your heart doesn't continue to be sick, so that your desire can be fulfilled right now. And you can be living and have that tree of life right now, so that you can have joy right now, so that you can have contentment right now, so that you can have peace right now. So that you can thrive right now. So that you can become who you want to be when you get the gifts. The particular gifts, right? Who you want to be when you become the parent. You can be that person right now. God wants you, needs you to be that person right now. Right, you don't know who your elevation, who your evolution is necessary for in this season. And the one thing that I don't want to do is I don't want to miss the mark. And I know that when I was in the dark of it and and I didn't know any of these things, right, and my hope was in the thing, and my heart was sick. I was missing the mark and people weren't getting helped and people weren't getting what they needed and the warrior in us wasn't even birthed into the earth, right? I I I I d I don't wanna be off my mark anymore. I wanna be on my mark. I wanna be where God needs me to be. And in order for me to be there, right, I've got to be evolving. I've got to be becoming the best version of myself as I wait. final revelation is we think that when we get we can think that when we get our gift right when we get the children that everything is gonna be like glorious and we w we're not gonna have no problems and everything will be easier and et cetera et cetera et cetera and we know that From Fellow warriors that have been here and that will come is that it doesn't get easier when the child when the children come, right? It doesn't get easier. You yes, you get some joy that you you you you hadn't had before. You get some love and and you get to give and receive in in a way that you hadn't before, but it doesn't get easier. And so life everything in life is always sweet. bitter and so I believe if when we navigate this waiting well and we get there right it helps us to focus on the sweets It helps us to give more time and attention to that sweet because in the midst of our waiting when it's dark and it's desolate and it's debilitating, there is always sweet available. There is always good available. We just have to do the work to be shifting our attention to that sweet. To that good so that we begin to make the necessary steps to progress and evolve in our waiting as we wait so that we are waiting well. It's my hope and my prayer that you got something good out of this time. And share this message with a fellow warrior or anybody, because the topic today was really general. Yes, I was coming from a specific lens, but everybody waiting on something, right? E everybody's in a waiting season. And sometimes these waiting seasons can result in hopelessness that leads to our hearts being sick. And no matter what we're waiting on God to do, right? No matter what the waiting is connected to. God intends for us to be waiting well. Galatians 6 9 came to my head Do not grow weary in well doing, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. Okay? Weariness comes and it goes, but we have to be standing firm and solid on our rock. So that's we're evolving in the waiting. So that we're getting better. We're becoming better people in the waiting. Waiting is purpose filled. Please do not miss. this moment. Please don't waste your weight. Okay, warriors, I'm done. I hope that you were blessed. I hope that you got something. And until next time, I always want you to be well. I always want you to be getting better. I always want you to be doing the necessary work to thrive in your life. Alright. Well, that's all I got. Until next time. Please, please, please. Be well.