John, I have prayed several times today for your health and encouragement in these last days of waiting.  God bless.
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Thanks, Judy!
John

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Tracy,
 
We have all felt the feelings that you describe of disappointment over the uneventful windows on the Lord's return.  It is a delicate balance to be vulnerable and joyous over the possibility of the Lord's return and to relinquish our exquisite desire to be with Him in favor of his perfect timing.  We are all saddened and sickened by the world's rapid deterioration and we long to escape.  A verse from my recent reading said, "Righteousness hates wickedness and wickedness hates righteousness." NLT.  We feel that repulsion like the repelling magnetic forces.
 
It seems as if our personal lives are sifted and sorted in Job like detail.  We long to have the Holy Spirit examine our hearts so that our linen is prepared for the Bridegroom and yet we are subject to the constant accusations of the enemy.  Our daily verbal failures cause us to wonder if we will ever be ready for the Bridegroom and yet he says that he judges the INTENTS of our hearts.  I am so appreciative that is his choice because between the intent and the spoken words, a disconnect happens often as my own physical weariness weighs down on the day.
 
If all of this is working together for good for each of our hungering hearts, and we know that it is, then we must trust him at a new level.  We need to go beyond our expectation of WHAT he will do, to WHO he is.  He is our beloved.  We trust him to act towards us with love beyond our capacity to comprehend .  Then, thru the tears, we can say, "I submit to whatever you choose.  I am bought with a price.  Let it be as you wish."  When I shed my resentment for the ugliness I see around me,  when I walk away from the list of impossible circumstances that I personally face, then my joy in focusing on his face is that of a lover's anticipation.  I can hope again not just in what he will do and when he will do it but in his desire for me and for all of us to be at his side.
 
A friend of my daughter's has a young son, Gabe, who is battling leukemia and went into seizures this past week.  The friend was in great agony as they rehospitalized little Gabe who had mouthed "Help me" just as the seizures began.  She said she wept more in those days than she had in the months since the marrow transplant.  She signed her e mail update, "Torn between anxiety and trust".  Aren't we all?  (When we pray for one another and our own unchanging circumstances in the face of overwhelming promises of his soon presence, please add little Gabe to your prayer as the battle for his life wages on.)
 
You are absolutely not alone, Tracy.  I, too, am torn between anxiety over the possibility that he might not come this spring, and trust that everything in me seems to sense that the promise is ready to be realized in a short few weeks.  Then, I would love to give you a hug as we rejoice together that indeed, the time finally came!
 
Judy Morford