May is the fifth month of the year. Spring has come, the pollen is gone, school reaches toward its close. For some reason, I’ve been in a little bit of a rut this month. After such an exhausting winter and spring, my body and heart are ready to slow down. At the same time, I crave variety–I want to change things up a little (and this time, I’m not interested in chopping off my hair).

Some days, it’s harder to catch the beauty than others. This month, the Lord blessed me with one that stared me right in the face.

In celebration of Mother’s Day, we took my mom to one of her favorite restaurants downtown, located in the repurposed campus of the old insane asylum.

I know what you’re thinking. The iron gates from creepy movies with lightning and thunder crackling overhead comes to mind. And maybe that would have been accurate during a storm, on Halloween. Instead, the area had an old, regal feel to it. The bricks of each building were richly colored and a little bit crumbly. Huge, old-fashioned windows lined the walls of one of the main buildings.

But one of my favorites was the old church that sat directly out the window next to our table while we ate.

The steps looked uneven and destitute, sagging slightly under the disgrace of unuse. The paint on the white pillars, trim, and door peeled forlornly. The bricks looked like perhaps they were the old kind, like you see at historical plantations, made by slaves and marked with children’s fingerprints. An immense magnolia tree had been allowed to grow up right in front of the building. The steeple reached toward the sky, tall and piercing despite the dilapidated condition of the building.

Everything about it screamed for a story. It felt like the kind of church they would have visited in To Kill a Mockingbird, rather than an abandoned chapel for mentally ill individuals. Everything about it whispered possibility to my heart, and now I’m wondering… do I have a story to go with it?

That church has been standing empty for decades. What does the next chapter hold? Is that building at the end of the waiting? Am I?

I think God does the same thing with us–says, “oooh, I have a story for that one.” And then He makes our lives happen.

It’s sweet when the story comes true.

All of my life, I’ve been waiting for something. Some days I’m more sure of what it is than others. And the Lord has taught me so much about waiting. About how waiting is active–it’s a greenhouse where you grow so you’re equipped to do the thing. About how waiting is sweet as your relationships deepen into something better. About how waiting is really just another part of the story–the part before the thing you’ve decided is the most important thing happens. (Spoiler, sometimes the waiting is the best part.)

And now, it seems like I’m standing at the edge of the end of the season of waiting. The Lord is working, y’all. I’ve dreamed of having my own publishing company for years. I filed the LLC (an independant house to publish my books only) last week. I’ve dreamed for decades of publishing a book. It’s coming soon. I’ve learned how to wait for God to give directions, to be okay with a bend in the road where I can’t glimpse what’s waiting for me. He’s starting to show me what’s around the bend in the road.

He’s just so good. My toes are hanging over the end of the page, and I can smell the next chapter. I am so excited. What a gift.

The question, I think, is this: what do I do at the end of the waiting? As I step from this season into the next, what changes inside of me? If a congregation were to meet inside of that old church building this Sunday, not only would that begin a new chapter for it, but something would alter inside of it.

How do I embrace my status as a New Creation in Christ more fully as God makes me more like Himself with each passing season?

I don’t want to be a church with peeling paint and boarded up windows, surprised when He works miracles. I want to have the doors of my heart wide open. I want to watch and see. I want to be ready for the Holy Spirit to sweep the dirt out of my heart. Because there’s always going to be sin for Him to sanctify.

Maybe that’s it–we never really stop waiting this side of heaven. I may be about to embark on the dreams I’ve savored for so long, but I’m still young. There are dreams to come that I haven’t yet dreamed. As Flynn Rider to poignantly reminds Rapunzel in Tangled, when my dreams come true, I get to find a new dream. And then it’ll seem like I’m waiting for that one, until the ultimate hope comes true: I look my Maker in the eye and live forever in the glory of the New Heaven and the New Earth.

Never stop looking forward. Never stop “waiting.”

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17