View from the waiting room

There will be no literal "waiting room" for me when surgery day comes. The time pressure is so tight for hospital room here in Victoria that I am instructed to arrive at the hospital at 6 a.m. on November 3rd and by 9:30 I'll be counting backwards from 10 as the anaesthetic kicks in ("10..9..8.... see ya"). That will leave Shirley in the waiting room.
And so these days are my "waiting room" experience. I should be good a waiting after all those hours in African airport waiting rooms. But I'm not. So I've been asking the Lord to teach me again how to deal with delays. And He is doing it with a lot of help from my praying friends.
Perhaps the greatest lesson is on prayer (again). I've been re-reading Yancey's book on Prayer which is one of the best (along with Richard Foster's "Prayer, Finding the Heart's True Home"). I resonate with the truth that prayer is primarily a relationship with God where, when we draw close to Him, the Spirit, who knows our hearts, prays for us "with groanings that cannot be uttered". Paul calls it 'praying in the Spirit' in Romans 8. Prayer then morphs into worship and the exact words or forms of prayer become secondary to just being in His presence.
Of course, there are specific requests in prayer. I don't do well at praying for myself. I can't shake the feeling that it's a selfish thing to do. But the Bible has lots of exhortations and examples of that kind of prayer. And so I'm doing better at it. But most of all I'm thankful for time in the waiting room to pray for others. I think there are more people on my list than I've had at one time in my entire life. That's because I've heard from SO MANY who have called or emailed to say they are concerned and praying for me. It has been an incredible experience of being cared for by the Body of Christ. That moves me to pray for these people and others who have needs as great or greater than mine.
Another blessing of the waiting room is time to write. More about that in my next blog.
Pardon my lengthy musings. I don't think blogs are intended to be extended trains of thought. But I'm new to this. Hope you enjoy reading these thoughts. God bless.
KEN