Waiting sucks us into the vortex of living only a half-life until the waiting ends. It's so easy - too easy - to become absorbed by constantly asking ourselves "What's going to happen? How will this turn out? When can I really begin to live again?" We don't notice that Life IS going on - right in front of our distracted eyes. That we WOULD be living if we gave the rest of our lives a chance.
"Haven't you noticed," God continues, touching our hearts with Hope, "that, if you're not careful, you won't really enjoy that son of yours growing into a teenager?"
"Haven't you noticed," God says, tickling our ribs so we have to laugh, "that even if you're sitting in this waiting room, waiting for a diagnosis, that there's a perfectly adorable baby in the arms of the mother sitting across from you, and that baby keeps trying to yank her mother's glasses off her nose?"
"Haven't you noticed," whispers God with great gentleness, "that even if some people disrupt and stress out your life, and cause you to wait until they get their acts together, that there are so many others who yearn for your attention and love - and have so much love to give back to you?"
God gives us the strength we need as spiritual long-distance runners so that we don't grow weary, we don't grow faint, as we wait and wait for our lives to straighten out. But God also gives us the Joy, Hope, and Laughter we need to keep living our real lives, - the ones right in front of us. Because whatever moments and occasions we aren't aware of now will never come again. They'll slip through our fingers and be gone. And then we'll live to regret all the Life that we never really lived.