Attention Word Slingers readers: Beginning December 11, 2019, all posts will be available at BaptistMessenger.com. Thank you for reading Word Slingers!

The time between Election Day 2016 and Inauguration Day 2017 has been one marked by tension. On the one side, you had people who generally disagree with President Obama who are upset his tenure was not over quicker so Mr. Trump’s presidency can start.

On the other, you have some who generally loved and supported Mr. Obama and dread the idea of President Trump. Yes, the days, weeks and months between November 8 and January 20 have been grueling and full of longsuffering on both sides. There’s been bawling on both sides, you might say.

What many people do not realize, however, is that until the 1930s, the time between Election Day and Inauguration Day was much longer. Originally, presidential elections were held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November every four years, following by inauguration in March.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president over Hebert Hoover in 1932, several significant events took place between November and March, including the rise of Adolf Hitler to German Chancellor abroad, while the effects of vast unemployment and the Great Depression dragging on at home. It was partly for these reasons that our country’s leaders shortened the time between Election Day and Inauguration Day in the late 1930s.

In life, like politics, often the “times in between” can be some of the most trying. When God’s people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before entering the Promised Land, that was a period of judgment and grief. When Joseph languished in prison before being raised up to be the number-two man in Egypt, that time in between was deeply difficult.

The times in between, however, can be where we learn the most. It is these times in which God can give us patience, forcing us to rely on Him, not other people or our circumstances. It is these times in which we learn to walk by faith not be sight.

We never wish for or desire the in-between times. But perhaps I, perhaps each of us, can learn to bear through these times better, with more patience and forbearance. So help us God…