Tri­cia St John

I spent Moth­er’s Day in bed. Not be­cause I was sick or any­thing, but be­cause I just want­ed to be alone. I didn’t cook. I didn’t re­spond to or send the usu­al, nu­mer­ous greet­ings that so­ci­ety seems to now be ad­dict­ed to, and I don’t even think I ate un­til much lat­er on. I just lay in bed and thought about my chil­dren and gave thanks that they are all adults and no longer my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. It’s amaz­ing how ed­i­fy­ing that aware­ness is for me.

I re­mem­ber prepar­ing meals, bak­ing on week­ends, and the whirl­wind of life with small chil­dren. School books, home­work, new shoes, cloth­ing, vi­t­a­mins, out­ings, and toys at birth­days and Christ­mas. I re­mem­ber ly­ing in bed many a night, com­fort­ing my­self with the knowl­edge that they would grow old­er and that it would def­i­nite­ly get eas­i­er every year un­til they were fi­nal­ly re­spon­si­ble for them­selves. 

In the evening, I got up and got my­self pre­pared for the com­e­dy show ‘Mam­my Say’ held at Sound Forge and host­ed by Jaron Nurse. I hap­pen to love and iden­ti­fy with a lot of the songs sung by both Jaron and Blessed Mes­sen­ger, and the fact that I hadn’t seen Learie Joseph on stage in a long time seemed like an added bonus. So, there I was, sit­ting in the crowd, to­tal­ly en­joy­ing my­self. I saw some fa­mil­iar faces.

A few women chat­ted me up be­cause they re­mem­bered my TV in­ter­view a cou­ple of weeks ago on ‘She Says So’. That in­ter­view some­how, af­ter all this time, was ac­tu­al­ly one of my most dif­fi­cult, and it al­ways amazes me that peo­ple look at me and see so much strength. I see some­one who has had too much. My chil­dren were small, and they need­ed me, and re­al­ly, what was the oth­er al­ter­na­tive? Roll over and die? Some­how, that didn’t sit well with me, and it still doesn’t.

Any­way, Jaron came on stage with a song that I’d nev­er heard be­fore. I don’t know if it was a new ad­di­tion or if I’d just nev­er heard of it. What hap­pened is that as I lis­tened to the words, they seemed to sink in­to my soul, com­fort me, and al­so put a mul­ti­tude of things in­to per­spec­tive.

Don’t for­get God

know yuh sit­u­a­tion, 

Stay right there in

the same po­si­tion. 

It does feel like some of dem come, way af­ter you 

Dey now come! And it look like some of dem done get through. 

But doh wor­ry God tim­ing is not your own. Ah want yuh stay right there in the wait­ing zone … good Lord in the wait­ing room.

Of­ten­times, we get dis­cour­aged when we’ve been pray­ing for what seems like an eter­ni­ty, but we still aren’t see­ing the re­sults we want or think we de­serve. Moth­ers pray for their chil­dren. To keep them fo­cused and on the right path. Some­times we pray to get them to take the right path be­cause we see the de­struc­tion on the road they’re trav­el­ling hap­pi­ly along, a lot of times un­aware, but the ma­jor­i­ty of times not be­cause they don’t know bet­ter but be­cause they have free­dom of choice. Free­dom of choice is a strange gift. It al­lows us to do as we well please but ex­pects us to do the right thing, and holds us ac­count­able when we don’t. 

Wives pray for their hus­bands. For them to stop smok­ing or drink­ing. Be more help­ful at home. To be ro­man­tic, re­mem­ber birth­days and Valen­tines. To re­main faith­ful. To stop cheat­ing if that’s al­ready their reg­u­lar be­hav­iour. To get bet­ter job op­por­tu­ni­ties. To help with the chil­dren more. To find sal­va­tion. To stop hit­ting or be­ing emo­tion­al­ly and or ver­bal­ly abu­sive. To lead. 

Hus­bands pray for their wives. For them to stop smok­ing or drink­ing. Be more help­ful at home. To be ro­man­tic, re­mem­ber birth­days and Valen­tine’s. To re­main faith­ful. To stop cheat­ing if that’s al­ready their reg­u­lar be­hav­iour. To get bet­ter job op­por­tu­ni­ties. To help with the chil­dren more. To find sal­va­tion. To stop hit­ting or be­ing emo­tion­al­ly or ver­bal­ly abu­sive. To al­low them to lead. 

Chil­dren pray for their par­ents. For sal­va­tion. For heal­ing. For them to be around for a long time. There is a lot of un­der­stand­ing that comes on­ly if and when we be­come par­ents our­selves. Women pray to be­come moth­ers. Men pray to be­come fa­thers. 

It is easy to be­come dis­cour­aged and give up. Days turn in­to weeks, and those weeks turn in­to months that turn in­to years, and we still haven’t got­ten preg­nant. We didn’t get the pro­mo­tion. Our chil­dren are still far from God or far from where we think they should be. Our hus­bands are still not lead­ing as we think they should. And it feels like all we do is pray and hope, to no avail. 

Who are you to say, though? We can­not see be­hind the scenes. We have no idea what God is do­ing or work­ing out on our be­half. Some­times he has to clean up the mess we our­selves make be­fore he can bless us with what he knows we need. Some­times, what we need is ex­act­ly what we prayed for, but some­times it is not. Some­times, when we wait, it is be­cause God knows we are not yet ready for what we ask. Some­times, re­gard­less of how hard we pray for some­thing, it is sim­ply be­cause that isn’t for us, be­cause what God has in store is much bet­ter, will be more ful­fill­ing, and will def­i­nite­ly be more of a bless­ing in our lives. 

So, while you sit, stand, or kneel in the wait­ing room, keep at it. The ul­ti­mate goal is to stay there. Don’t lose hope. In the end, God’s tim­ing is his alone, and re­gard­less of whether we stamp, scream, or dis­obey, his tim­ing is not in­flu­enced by any­thing ex­cept per­haps our ded­i­ca­tion while in the wait­ing room.