Pitching a tent in the waiting

I was in Europe a few summers ago, reading Isaiah 54 in bed before I went to sleep. 

It’s a story about a woman who lost her husband and had a desire for a big family but never had children. God tells her to start preparing. He says that her family will soon be so large – or “bursting at the seams,” in the NLT – that her descendants would spread from right to left inhabiting many nations. 

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch the tent doors wide, do not hold back. Use plenty of rope.

You’re going to need lots of elbow room for your growing family.

Don’t be afraid—you’re not going to be embarrassed.

Don’t hold back—you’re not going to come up short;

It’s with lasting love that I’m tenderly caring for you.”

In the Old Testament, tents were used as homes. I was struck by what God was asking of her: lay the foundation, then expect me to come.

Start taking steps as if I am already doing it – the thing that you want the most. Risk. Risk in a way that makes you vulnerable. That costs you something. Move in faith before it makes sense or adds up.

Pitch a tent in the waiting. Spread out, get comfortable, call this place home. 

You won’t be here forever.

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Not long after, I was on a 12 hour flight watching August Rush on the seatback screen. If you haven’t watched this film: it’s about a child whose parents are separated before he is born. They both love music. August dreams that, if he composes a beautiful symphony, they will come back to him.

At this point in the story, you need to know that I dreamt about a space online where of my creative work could live for years. 

I watched fierce, little August lift his hands high in Central Park, his parents locking eyes over a full symphony playing in the background. I felt something warm, pressing in my throat and God saying to me – “Go home. Buy the domain. Write what you need to write. Start preparing the way as if I will show up.”

To me, this sounded a lot like, “enlarge the tent. Use plenty of rope. Settle in; expect me to come. You’re about to make a home in the waiting.”

I built the website - scattered with photos from Greece, interior design, and decisively honest writing about who I missed and the stories I wished had ended differently.

I grabbed coffee with a friend at Bellwood in Atlanta and told her about this empty space I was noticing in myself. I described a longing I was restless over how long it may take to fill. “Can I just say, this waiting might be shorter than you think?,” she told me. I wrote it down when I got home that night.

Five days later, my phone rang. Kenny, who I hadn’t talked to in over 3 years, was calling me. Kenny, who I hadn’t dated in 7 years, told me what he was doing: “I’m sitting on my porch, reading. I called because I just found your website.” Like August’s parents, he heard the music.

I invited him to the house I owned and cooked him dinner that night. 

____________________

The first time we dated, I was 19 and he was 20. We met at the coffee shop where I worked when he was finishing an internship in Roswell over the summer. We had no tools, skills or frontal lobes for the year that was about to happen to us. I started college, he moved back to Statesboro, and got a cancer diagnosis 9 months later. 

The night that I made him dinner, he told me he’d applied for a job in a mountain town on the other side of the country. He moved six months later. 12 months after that, I was packing up everything to try a “temporary home” with him in Bozeman, Montana.

Recently, I flipped through my camera roll from 10 years ago and found some of my favorite memories of when we dated the first time. We were camping near a lake in Augusta, Georgia. It’s the first time I can remember seeing two shooting stars. We brought firewood, music and a bottle of cheap red wine.

I think this was the first time I saw him pitch a tent. We have spent a lot of time sleeping under stars since then.

You should see the way he has dialed in his camp game now: there are solar-powered string lights; the cheap wine is accompanied by expensive steaks and a breakfast taco special, and with the speaker we pack up headlamps, pillows, camping mattresses and his guitar.

____________________

I think that if Noah can be credited with saving creation, the woman in Isaiah can be considered the mother of many nations. I cannot imagine how ridiculous she felt. And yet, Zion was built on her faith.

When I read about her, I had no idea God was going to essentially bring me back to love with a professional tent builder. (This is a literal thing. Kenny takes photos for his profession, which often involve outdoor activities, which often involve sleeping - or living - in tents.) I didn’t know that we’d move to Montana and tents would soon mark many of our favorite memories.

The glory of the place that we’re in right now is that we’re still waiting.

I think if the Bible was written in 2024, putting stakes in the ground would look like asking a parent for their ring, even when the first dates are endless or hopeless or no where to be found. It would look like ordering the baby Zara dress while you’re still single, living in a one bedroom apartment. Buying the biggest couch the day you move to a new town, believing god will fill your living room. Building the website. Naming the LLC. Signing up for the marathon, even though you’ve never been a runner before.

I think it would look like making room before there is any indication that this time, things will go differently. We can believe god when he says, “don’t hold back. You’re not going to come up short.” We can stretch wide the canvas before there’s anything to fill it.

Build the arc before the flood. Prophesy bravery. 

We are taking take steps toward the day where faith becomes sight. Before hope becomes fact. We are counting stars in the waiting.