WAiting – Dr Bexl Revamp

#Emptyshelf17 No.42: Those Who Wait by @Tanya_Marlow

Those Who Wait: Finding God in disappointment, doubt and delay by Tanya Marlow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As I wait for results from bone/CT scans to see if the cancer has spread across my body, I turned to Tanya’s book – which I’d been watching and waiting to see as it has developed. Tanya’s cheerfulness in the midst of her struggles and waiting is encouraging, and provides an excellent starting point for her book, combined with her clear theological positioning at the outset.

I really enjoyed reading through Sarah, Isaiah, John the Baptist and Mary’s story. I love the ‘novelisation’ way in which the stories are told, and was left wanting more as each Biblical ‘character’ reached the point at which the waiting was over – which I guess, leads us back to the Bible.

I enjoyed reading the book as an individual text (and didn’t undertake any of the interesting options for activity). I can see how it would work well for churches and youth groups, especially over Advent, but waiting is a year round activity.

I received an advance copy of the book, and voluntarily reviewed it.

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#AdventBookClub: Day 32: Waiting

We can see what we’ve done, we can see the possibilities ahead. We can possibly:

arrive at the New Year with a sense that the horizon has once again fallen away; you may have a hunch that, once again, there is more life to live, more to do, more to find. We don’t always know quite what we’re waiting for. It seems to be part of the human condition that we get bored when we are too satisfied and, whenever one chapter of achievements or life events closes, we cannot rest too long before we sense that familiar feeling of reaching out for something more.

As 2014 has hit, do we have a sense of expectation, or a fear of the year ahead – once again I approach with both, but with a sense – echoed in Maggi’s next paragraph – that we are not sitting waiting for God’s thunder-bolds, but living the best that we know how in our lives as they are now, waiting with a sense of hope and expectation.