My flawlessly honest mother was very careful about keeping her promises, even to us children. So it follows that she had to be very careful about making promises. I’ll admit that we pushed the limit pretty hard, trying to extract some word of certainty from her. “Can we go to Grandma’s house this weekend? Can we? Can we?” “Can I have a camera for Christmas? Can I, please?” “Can Marlene spend the night?” “Can Daddy bring home some pop?” “Can I . . . Can we . . . ?” And my mother would answer calmly, “We’ll see.”
Had she said, “Hmm . . . maybe,” or “Well, I think so . . .” one of us likely would have whined later when our hopes did not materialize, “But you promised!” That little bit of hesitation, that holding out of slim hope surely was meant to be a promise, wasn’t it? But “We’ll see,” meant just that: When the time comes, we will see then what we will see! Maybe you will have what you want, maybe not. Right now, I don’t know, so you will just have to wait, because I am not going to be trapped into making a “promise” I will eventually not be able to keep.
I’ve been thinking about the waiting that Christians do, looking toward “the end of all things.” We know some things: we will be with our Lord, and we will be with a host of others who love Him too, but there are a lot of things we just don’t know. We will have to wait and see. Unlike my mother’s carefulness not to promise, God has given us great and precious promises, and unlike the uncertainty of our childish hopes being fulfilled, God has planned for us fullness of joy.
“We’ll see.” Truly, and with full understanding at last, we’ll see!
MaryMartha
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Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
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