Wait

Today, I'm linking up with Kate Motaung's Five Minute Friday. The rules: Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

This week's prompt: Wait.

Five Minute Friday 4 300x300

I'm not good at waiting.

For a type-A, driven person, waiting feels like doing nothing to me; Like wasting time.

Yet this year, pregnancy is forcing me to wait.

After all, every single aspect of pregnancy involves waiting.

You wait for the “right time” to get pregnant.

Then once you decide you want to get pregnant, you wait for the positive pregnancy test... Then for your first doctor's appointment and ultrasound – the one where they tell you whether or not your pregnancy is “viable”.

You wait for your pants to feel tight and for your body to start showing it's new shape and the child growing within it.

You wait to find out the baby's gender... And to feel the first flutters of movement.

Sometimes, when complications arise, you wait in other ways.

For the last week, I've waited on my couch, my mobility limited after a recent pregnancy scare... And every day, I've struggled with this, frustrated by new limitations as we await the birth of our child in May.

For the first time, however, what I'm learning is this: Waiting is not synonymous with doing nothing.

Whenever I doubt this, I need only to look at the series of ultrasound pictures we have – from the unrecognizable blob at 7 weeks to a very recognizable, tiny, 1 lb 6 oz human at 23 weeks - to see that even as my husband and I wait, God is at work. Day by day, our baby is being miraculously formed in my womb.

And so we wait, trusting that as we do, God works.

Jen Bradbury on Youth Ministry

Jen serves as the Minister of Youth and Family at Atonement Lutheran Church in Barrington, Illinois. A veteran youth worker, Jen holds an MA in Youth Ministry Leadership from Huntington University. Jen is the author of The Jesus Gap: What Teens Actually Believe about Jesus (The Youth Cartel), The Real Jesus (The Youth Cartel), Unleashing the Hidden Potential of Your Student Leaders (Abingdon), and A Mission That Matters (Abingdon). Her writing has also appeared in YouthWorker Journal, Immerse, and The Christian Century. Jen is also the Assistant Director of Arbor Research Group where she has led many national studies. When not doing ministry or research, she and her husband, Doug, and daughter, Hope, can be found traveling and enjoying life together.

More about Jen

Jen's Books

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A Mission That Matters: How To Do Short-Term Missions Without Long-Term Harm

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Now Available!

Unleashing the Hidden Potential of your Student Leaders

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The Real Jesus

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The Jesus Gap

What Teens Actually Believe About Jesus

Based on National Research

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