The Waiting Room

Nell Martinby Nell Martin



This is my 75th year and I am in unfamiliar territory. Waiting is not my favorite thing to do and that’s what I find myself doing a lot. Waiting for a blood report from the doctor. Waiting for a new crown to be replaced for a broken tooth. Waiting to remember a name that I am very familiar with to come into my brain. Besides mental and physical changes there are new emotional and spiritual challenges. We live a long distance from any close family. Our daughter in California we see twice a year. The one in Memphis is busy building a retirement home in Florida. Katie, our only grandchild, is working in Charlotte and preparing to go to graduate school. A number of our old friends have died. Now that I have more time to BE I don’t have as many playmates close by. The waiting seems to be more about “letting go” than about looking for how to sustain my call. My call has been the same for forty years when I became aware of it at a Faith At Work Conference in Germantown TN. LOVE GOD FIRST AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. How I live that out changes.

Between Time


Today I feel like I am between trapezes. The old familiar one I have let go of and the new one I have not grabbed hold of yet. My whole life has been filled with teaching, leading seminars and conferences, and having responsibilities in the church and our community. I have defined myself through what I do. Grace has always been hard for me to accept in the core of my soul. I know what it is because I have experienced it so many times, but to sustain the feeling of it is difficult to do as I battle with my personal demons. Instant gratification and expectations nip at my heels daily. I will never be “skinny” or frugal. Bill will never cook or work in the yard. My children will never think I am the best Mother in the world The “golden years” are not so easy after all. Patience is not one of my greatest virtues. I am frustrated when I can’t find a clerk to help me in some of the cavernous stores where I buy shoes made in Indonesia, frozen shrimp from Chile and a blouse from Ethiopia. When the information operator asks me to please spell Sarasota I am horrified. Little old ladies (like me) seem to take forever to count their change at the check out line in the grocery store.

I don’t remember all this waiting in my earlier years. The airports didn’t look like crowded subway stations. Emotionally I am less tolerant. Spiritually I am listening to how to sustain my call at this time. Is it writing my memoirs, is it my painting? I love my naps and reading old books again and having more time to write notes. At the same time I feel afraid of the unknown of being old. Some of my friends are excited about going to heaven. The sooner the better. Not me-not yet. There is too much left to discover about living. So many flowers to plant; birds to feed, music to hear. I know many of you that are reading this have some great suggestions for me, but at this moment I would like to “be still and listen to the voice within” that has always been faithful - particularly in the “between trapeze time.” So until I know more than I know now, I will wait to see what the next bar on the trapeze seems to be. Waiting for the next chapter of the call to write itself will be exciting. Who knows, FAW can begin a new ministry to old people. You have to be 75 or older to sign up.

Nell Martin writes from Highlands NC. A long-time member of the F@W Board, she helped to start the F@W Women’s Ministry.