I serve steak fries. I serve bottomless steak fries… 30 hours a week. When I go to bed at night, I dream of steak fries. I’m a server… which often translates into ‘slave’. I’m a firm believer that all valuable lessons in life can be learned by waiting… waiting on tables and/or just simply… waiting. I don’t know where you are in life, and I don’t exactly know where I am – but I DO know we have at least one thing in common. We’re all waiting... for something.
I get it. We’re a goal-oriented society. We graduate from kindergarten, from middle school, from high school, on to college, graduation, marriage, kids, retirement, and eventually death – and through all these things we are trying to achieve… stuff. We have a goal in mind and we subconsciously promise ourselves happiness, fulfillment, and total satisfaction when we reach it. “I’ll be happy [or happiER at least] when I’m… … What? Married? Having kids? In the income bracket of my choosing? Owner of a beach house? Living in Florida? Far away from the in-laws? Retired, playing golf all day?” I mean, what is it? What are you waiting for? You know what it is.
In this lies my conviction. How many hours and days and happy moments do we spend wishing we were ‘there’, at some other point in our lives? How many years, and brain cells, do we burn wishing for ‘that’ particular mile marker in this life journey? It is my goal to redefine 'waiting', because so often our current definition of 'waiting' isn’t really ‘living’, is it? Within this blog is my purpose. May I not take for granted one second… one conversation… one relationship… because what if the point of life is to figure out what to do AS your waiting? What if waiting, and serving in the mundane, ordinary parts of life, IS what life is about?
Just a little bit about me, in case you’re still reading… I have a Bachelors in Psychology and a Masters of Divinity… and I’m an ordained minister in the Baptist tradition… which basically means I can marry you and bury you… legally. Ninety-nine out of 100 people surveyed agree that I should be working in some organized religious institution… i.e. a building with a big room called a sanctuary and pointy architectural designs called steeples. I disagree. I left it all… to feed the hungry and sell fountain drinks to those who thirst… It’s beautiful.
I don’t know if I’ll ever work in a church again, but of this ONE thing I am absolutely sure: Jesus lives. Would you like fries with that?
