A John Deere tractor is carefully parked, with safety cones before and after, on the suburban walking path I take every morning. I am baffled about why it is there. There is no snow to be removed, no holes to be dug, no new houses to be built.

Yet, the tractor is there.

No one takes an expensive piece of equipment and parks it in the middle of nowhere for no purpose.

There is some reason it is there.

Waiting.

I am waiting.

Weeks ago, I sent a sample of my fiction to a batch of potential agents. (In the field of children’s literature, to get a book published you pretty much have to go through an agent.)

A machine cannot feel vulnerable, but humans often do.

I feel vulnerable, having sent a piece of myself out into the cold cold world.

My faith tells me that I am exactly where I am supposed to be and that all is well. I can accept that. Most days. But waiting is still hard.

When my four-year-old and six-year-old grandchildren have to wait, they wait dramatically. They groan and wriggle and flop onto the sofa and say, “Is it time yet?” And “Can’t we do it now?”

In the Psalms, also, people complain to God with loud groans when they’re hurt or scared. So I know it’s perfectly OK to groan.

It’s OK to say, “What the heck is going on, God? I felt you called me to do this. I just received my first rejection. Beyond that, nothing. I am still waiting.”

It is hard to wait.

And yet…

There are messages along the way. And gifts.  

I receive them with deep gratitude.

One evening, a friend who hadn’t come to choir in weeks showed up at choir practice, sat beside me, and started praising my writing. (She and her children were test readers for The Shadow from the North.) She raved about it. She said, “You need to publish. I want to see it in the bookstores. It’s equal to or better than all the other things out there in that genre.” I told her about my search for an agent, about receiving my first rejection, how waiting is hard.

“And yet,” she said, “I believe God is pleased when we use our talents and step forward in faith with them.  That’s why he gave us our talents, after all, isn’t it?”

I sat there, feeling warmed. Feeling remembered.  “Thank you, God,” I said silently, “Thank you.”

If I am rejected by all these agents, I’ll submit to more agents. And more agents.

There is no guarantee I’ll ever get an agent.

I continue to wait, suspended between doubt and faith. Helped immeasurably by the mercy of God, who sends, when the waiting gets hard, sustenance, like food and water in the middle of a marathon.

Last night another gift came, e-mail telling me that I have sold another nonfiction piece.

I continue to wait. With trust (mostly), yet full of questions.

What do you want me to write, God?

Should I be writing more nonfiction? Is this where you want me to be? Show me what to do now.

And the answer comes.

You are exactly where you are supposed to be. All is in My hands. Be still and know that I am God.

So I take my questions and go for another walk.

The tractor is still there this morning.

Some morning it will be gone.

Sometime in the future I will or will not get an agent for my fiction. For now, I wait.

I practice trusting.

I choose to live in hope today, but with no expectations, or pretense that I know what the path ahead looks like.

For God is a God of surprises.

I do believe that He wants me to use my writing to give stories of wonder, bravery and hope to the world and to pass along to others some of the wonder, the joy and the love I feel for this world and for Him.

Beyond that, I know nothing.

And so I wait.