Let It Ring

I stared at the reflective screen of my phone.  I was holding it in my lap during church, facing up, like I do every Sunday.  It's a calculated move, a decision made months ago.  I want to be able to see the screen, because it lights up just before it starts to ring.  I keep it on my lap so if it does ring, I am ready to answer the moment it does, so the ring tone doesn't distract anyone else in the service.

I hit the power button once, so that a cute picture of my son lights up the blackened screen for a moment.  I do this multiple times a day.  Just in case I happen to miss the call I am so desperate to receive, I will sometimes check the call log and my email.  

In a moment of transition between someone speaking and the worship team, I run over the plan again in my head.  If we would've gotten the call in that moment, I knew exactly what I would have done.  I have daydreamed and planned and prayed for the moment continuously for months, so everywhere I go, I have the "drop everything and run" plan in place.  From the grocery store to work to the middle of nap time at home.  I know how I will tell people, I know who I will call first, I know what questions I will ask, I know where every item I want to pack is and I am pretty sure I can go from hanging up the phone to completely ready to go, ready to abandon our house and have our dog sitter alerted, ready to change my life forever, within 20 minutes.

During the prayer during the church service, I let my eyes slide open as I stare at the screen again.  Let it ring, I pray.  Let it be now.  The waiting is really hard.  I am ready.  

We leave the church and drive home to our almost perfectly cleaned home.  It looks like it's about to go on the market with how clean I keep it these days.  Our laundry never goes more than a day or two, our dishes are always clean and put away.  I would hate to leave our house a mess for my student who plans on living here to take care of our pets while we are away.

In the afternoon, I prepared freezer meals.  It's for this upcoming month, but I hope that they will come in handy when we come home with our family a little larger.

In the evening we went on a family walk, my phone sticking out of the stroller's cup holder.  We talked about history and our lives while Josiah sat contentedly in front of us, watching the world go by.  I was almost 100% in the moment, enjoying my life with my child and my husband.  But I glanced at the phone every now and again, willing it to ring.

I went to sleep with the prayer in my heart.  Bright and early Monday morning I laced up my running shoes and the moment my foot hit the pavement, the prayer began again.

Sometimes the prayer is sophisticated, referencing scriptures about answered prayer and good things for his people and miracles God has already done.  Sometimes I pray it out loud to the crisp morning air, not feeling the slightest bit embarrassed when I run past someone who hears me "talking to myself".  Sometimes it's a teary whisper and the only word is "please".

On my days off from work I fill our time with outings and games and the new obsession in our house-- cars.  I play with matchbox cars on our basement floor, I clean the house when Josiah is distracted enough for me to slip away.  No matter what room I am in, the phone is nearby, it's ring tone as loud as it can be.  Sometimes, my mom will call and my heart will skip a beat.  Sometimes it will be a telemarketer from another state and it will skip two.  I catch myself watching Josiah play by himself on the living room floor and wonder what kind of brother he will be, so I pray again.

I'm back to taking a break from most social media, because many of my lovely friends have baby bumps or birth stories to talk about.  It's wonderful news and I rejoice for them and then I send up my prayer again.

I am sometimes filled with hope, knowing that all things are possible through Christ, and sometimes filled with sorrow, because those things have yet to pass and there are no guarantees that they will.  I am sometimes distracted just enough that it isn't at the front of my mind, but it's always there.  So I pray.

Let it ring, Lord. Let it be now.  The waiting is really hard.  I'm ready.