Waiting

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ~ Ecclesiastes 3:11

My dad came tonight to take Simon to a “west-a-waunt” for dinner. He called just before he left his office and told Simon he’d be here in about an hour. Not five minutes after we hung up the phone, Simon bolted down the stairs because he thought he heard Papa outside. I explained that an hour would take a little longer than that but that if we played it would go quickly and Papa would be here before we knew it. Still, ten minutes later, Simon was at the front door eagerly looking for Papa’s car, and he was unmoved for a good twenty minutes, sure Papa was coming very soon. He passed the time by pretending to talk on the phone and by remarking on every truck that passed, including a mail truck, a delivery truck, and several pickup trucks; the cars must have passed without comment. After I managed to snap a few pictures, he was distracted enough to come away from the door for a time, but he returned frequently to check.

On most days, I would not have given the scene much thought beyond being charmed by Simon’s three-year-old grasp on the length of an hour (although his daddy also has a terrible sense of time, so perhaps that’s more an inherited trait than a childhood thing) and his unrestrained excitement to see his papa. But today we learned that Jason’s Aunt Eileen passed away after a painful battle with cancer, and so my thoughts were a bit more solemn, perhaps a little more contemplative—tending a little less toward the daily grind and a little more toward eternity.

In Simon’s waiting for his papa, I caught a glimpse of what I’d like my perspective to be as I think about eternity and waiting to meet Jesus face to face. Simon was persistent and hopeful. Even when he was temporarily disappointed, he didn’t lose sight of who he was waiting for. He was also busy. Fully engaged. Quiet and rambunctious in turn. Asking “When?” again and again, not out of petulance, but anticipation. He knew that Papa promised to come and yet was still surprised and utterly delighted when he finally arrived.