Honestly? I have no idea what to write about right now. My brain is flat-lining, folks. It’s time for Christmas break, but I’m still a couple days away from it.

It reminds me of those long nights of studying in college, the ones during first semester exam week. Every part of you wanted to be on the road, in someone’s college beater car, on your way to home cooked meals, non-lofted beds, and weeks of blissful nothingness. But there you sat, in the library’s flourescent-lit computer lab, at 11:30pm, stretching every inch of your sorry brain to write something coherent about the literary themes in the book Beloved.

That’s how I feel right now. There’s nothing much coherent going on up there, just long lists of things I need to do before we hop on the plane. The thing is, there needs to be something coherent going on. I have five posts left until Christmas. So close, yet it feels so far away.

Makes me think of that line from Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.” For me it’s “just keep writing, just keep writing.”

Maybe you’re up against this feeling, too. Maybe you’re at the beginning of a long trip, running around the night before all the company arrives, kneeling before a pileful of presents to wrap. Maybe you’re starting a new job, just had a baby, caring for someone who is sick, or about to start another shift.

There are times, both big and small, when we feel like we just can’t keep going.

Back when everyone was waiting for the Messiah to come, I wonder if they felt at the end of their rope, too. It had been hundreds of years since a prophesy. Hundreds of years since the golden years of Isreal’s history. Hundreds of years of waiting for the promised Savior to appear, to see if everything God said would come true.

“Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ‘In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth; and He shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth. ‘In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety; and this is the name by which she will be called: the LORD is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:14-16).

How they must have longed for Jesus! The promises about him were astounding. Yet hundreds of years, so many lifetimes of passing down those promises, must have held doubts and impatience, concerns and despair.

But God doesn’t leave us while we are waiting, no matter how doubtful or tired we become. Instead, he has so many promises for those who wait, for those who remain faithful:

“But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31).”

Music to my ears. When we are waiting or struggling here on earth, in matters big and small, God promises strength and comfort, beyond what we can imagine. Even though we can’t see with our human eyes, God is always here, working just out of our sight.

“From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4). 

Just keep waiting. Just keep waiting.

“It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).