Our guest post today is by my sweet, new friend, Emily! If you’d like to read more from Emily, you can find her blog at http://lemonade-co.com/ and her Instagram handle is @Emily.annb.

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Have you ever felt stuck? Stuck in an endless period of waiting or loneliness?

I’m raising my hand because I definitely have felt that way and I am currently in a season of waiting.

Almost five years ago, I moved from New England to Tennessee.

When I moved to Tennessee, I didn’t know a single soul in the entire state. At the time, I was pretty shy and not very outgoing. All of a sudden I was thrown into a Southern world that I didn’t know anything about. Since I was moving out on my own, it was up to me to find a church to attend, to go grocery shopping, to pay all of the bills, etc.  I couldn’t rest in the fact that my mom would do it all like the superhero I thought she was.

God directed me to Tennessee. I had been very excited about moving out on my own until the loneliness crept in: I struggled making any true friends at first. I would cry myself to sleep the first few months, I was still shy, and it was hard for me to step outside of my comfort zone.

When I knew that God was leading me to Tennessee, I thought I would learn His will for my love life right away. I thought God would lead a knight in shining armor my way and we would live happily ever after. 

But I’m still single and at no point in the past five years did I think I was actually ready for a relationship… it’s just what my heart secretly wanted.

I felt like I was in two seasons at the same time: waiting and lonely. It felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I started to throw pity parties constantly, cake and ice cream included.

I never doubted this was where I was supposed to be… I never thought that I was out of God’s will, but I started to feel like God led me to Tennessee and then He forgot about me.  Obviously, that was not true: God didn’t forget all about me (no matter how much I thought He did).

Psalms 13:1 tells us, “How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? how long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?”

I thought I walked all alone on this journey, but that couldn’t be further from the truth: where God guides He provides. Since I couldn’t physically see God, I thought that He wasn’t there. He was there and still is there.

We are never truly alone. God is always with us. No matter how alone we may feel, God is there.

I felt so far away from God, but I wasn’t doing anything about it.

I wasn’t reading my Bible and talking with God every day like I should have been: He was yearning for me to call out to Him and I chose not to.

I decided to get caught up in reading books, binge watching television shows, exercising, etc. I decided to do what I thought would make me happy until the waiting and lonely seasons ended. If I could go back, I would definitely do things differently. Instead of choosing to be caught up in worldly things, I would try to spend more time with God.

While I can’t say that I’m fully out of the lonely season, I did make lifelong friends that I wouldn’t trade for the world. While I may not feel lonely most of the time, I still feel caught up in a season of waiting.

Usually when we think of waiting, we think of sitting around and not getting much accomplished, but God doesn’t want us sitting around while we wait. He wants us to work the wait.

“Working the wait” will look different for each of us. If we decide to show up willing to do whatever God asks of us, our waiting season will become much more profitable for God and His kingdom.

What does “working the wait” look like?

It can be simply choosing to step more outside of our comfort zone. It can be striving to put others before ourselves. It can be seeking to be a blessing to those around us.

Know that God has you where you are for a reason. God’s timing is perfect: we need to fully trust in Him and His perfect will for our life.

Psalms 27:14 says, “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”

God will give us the strength needed to wait and trust on Him. Dare to step outside your comfort zone. God is right there with you and will never let you fall. Choose to rest in God and His promises. 

While we wait, let’s purpose to “work the wait.”