They that wait

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." — Isaiah 40:31

Saturday morning and the Bible was open to Isaiah.

I did not choose Isaiah this morning. The pages fell there the way they sometimes fall, to a place I did not plan, and when I looked down the verse that was looking back at me was the one about the eagles. I have known this verse since I was a girl. My mother had it on a card taped to the inside of the kitchen cabinet, the one above the stove, where she could read it while she cooked. The card was yellowed and the tape was peeling and the words were the King James words, the ones that sound like they were written to be read aloud in a room full of people who needed to hear them.

They that wait upon the Lord. Not they that run. Not they that strive or push or figure it out or make it happen. They that wait. I have been waiting for a long time for things I cannot name and the waiting has not gotten easier but it has gotten more familiar, like a chair you sit in every morning until the chair knows the shape of you and you know the shape of the chair.

Shall renew their strength. I like this. Not create new strength. Renew. Make new again the strength that was already there. The strength does not come from nowhere. It comes from the same place it always came from. It gets tired and worn and thin, the way everything gets tired and worn and thin, and then it is made new. Not different. New.

They shall mount up with wings as eagles. I have seen eagles on the Blue Ridge. They do not flap. They ride the air. The air does the work and the eagle holds still and the holding still is the flying. I think about this. I think the verse is telling me something about what it looks like to wait, which is not sitting in a chair doing nothing but holding still while something larger than me does the lifting.

The morning is cool. September cool. The kind of cool that tells you the air has made up its mind about something. I closed the Bible and sat with the verse and the verse sat with me and neither of us was in a hurry.

Lord, renew what is worn. Lift what is tired. I am holding still.