We Might Die From Waiting
Any peak experience is worth waiting for. Nothing we’ve wanted to taste, see, or feel will find us without time between its arrival. I’m, admittedly, guilty of trying to micromanage any process. And at some point, we've all believed that we’d find the course God's laid out for our life, in His heart. In the end, we’re left with selfish hopes and empty expectations. I’m guilty of disingenuously chasing His heart, hoping it would lead me to His hand.
I think our culture has depicted God in ways that show His posture to be less than that of a loving father who comforts us, thoroughly, through our hope, and more like a parent who spoils their children and is subject to our immature compulsions. Exposing our most hidden needs and desires is an unusual form of trust and is trailed by the expectation that these prayers would be met without resistance. But within our relational exchange, waiting is a rite of passage. In the era of instant gratification, we must realize, God doesn’t work overnight and isn’t looking for a viral moment. God takes His time with the good things.
Waiting slowly becomes hoping, and we nurture a hope that is inhabited by someone who desires to see us through the waiting period. Imagine if seeds and crops had as hard of a time waiting to grow as farmers did to harvest them, but both learn that storms and time only work in their favor.
Flowers are just seeds that mastered the art of waiting, and all good things are subject to time.
Extended intermissions can be boring or tiresome, and something to hold us during the in-between can make patience easier to find solace in. Whoever needs to hear this, just hold God’s hand while you wait. In life, we can’t skip to the next song. We must sit through the interludes, skits, and least favorite tracks. But sometimes we need something to hold us. Just one voice, one person, or one song. Towards the latter end of In 2020, I remember going to the doctor every other week, some days hoping they'd lie to me about the state of my bones and body. But if I were cleared for therapy earlier than I needed to be, I risked worsening my injuries.
Before being cleared for physical therapy so I could re-learn to walk, the in-between moments helped connect the bridge I desperately wanted to cross. My doctor would receive my X-Rays and walk into the room with a smile regardless of the news it carried. Some people find hope in watching the way you wait. There’s patience and anxiety in waiting, but a way in which we do it. Regardless of whatever news the doctors gave me, in my heart I was prepared to move forward with the weight of it.
Waiting is a stage in any process I attempt to avoid. But those who've mastered the art of waiting have outsmarted time. For them, grey hairs and the seasons changing are only signs of a promise being near, not escaping. Sending emails and anticipating a response, or scholarship and job applications all remind us that good news is subject to a time frame. The anxiety and fretfulness that come with patience are symbols of distrust. But God doesn’t drop or forget what we left in His hands, and He carries it along with time.
Anticipating anything is difficult. I, professedly, don’t like waiting. I rarely express my anxiety, but anguish is inside. Doctor visits and sitting in the waiting room, or ordering anything online and expecting the arrival of a package at your door can’t escape the gravity of waiting. There is both reassurance and angst that meet us during this period.
After online purchases, we’re comforted by knowing we’re allowed to expect something and agitated by the silent reality that we might not receive a package, or if we do, it may not be what we ordered. But a waiting mind is a busy one. Sometimes we just need things to help us connect the pivotal moments. I’m sure that’s why barbershops are laced with parleying and magazines, which many of us never read. After about three or four rib-tickling laughs, the barber’s nodded his head at you while dusting hair off his stool. Waiting, in these settings, is simpler because the backbone of our patience is us being assured of what we’re anticipating. We know what to expect when we open packages. We’re confident that if we walk into a barbershop with a contorted hairline we’ll leave with it restored, sometimes.
Expected outcomes make long periods of God’s silence sufferable when we know what He’s working on.
Disappointment has scarred my life to the point where I now expect pain and let-down, always. This is a wound God can heal, and I believe Him to address it sooner than later. But the art of waiting has only fed my fear of being disappointed. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is the tree of life.” Expecting great things from God, and hoping that some part of your life will be restored after waiting, is an act of vulnerability. To hope or expect at all is to trust a safety net to catch you when falling. Amid this reality, waiting expectantly (Psalm 40:1-3) is still what we’re encouraged to do. After graduating I reached the lowest point of life I’d ever been.
I’m vividly familiar with the valleys, this is where my life has been spent. But this valley wasn’t full of trees, winds, and ambient sounds that would make it more beautiful and less desolate. This one was silent and isolated. It was deeper than post-grad depression. Not to say this isn’t a real thing, but my pain at this time could be traced back to the quiet and hurtful reality that I didn’t think God was speaking, and I was waiting on Him to move. Still waiting for my life to pivot after being stripped bare in 2020. My patience felt unseen. I remember having moments of breakdown and feeling as though He watched me innocently attempt to patch up a wound, just to make it worse.
The moment of being tired of waiting came one night in frustration, after endlessly reaching out and pitching stories to platforms, and being turned down or not responded to, all in my effort to land an opportunity to break through, I gave in to the pain I’d been experiencing from feeling unseen, unheard, and unsupported. This was also the culmination of pain I've attempted to mask over the last 2 years with vices that would make my grief more vivid. I remember silently telling God, “if this story isn’t accepted or you don’t give me a way out, I’m going to hurt myself, and it’s all on you.” Waiting, almost killed me.
I wrote a suicide note on my phone notes and made plans to run far away from home and not return unless someone found me, hoping that I could sneak my way into a homeless shelter and have a moment where an angel would speak through some woman who unexpectedly housed a surplus of wisdom. I did want to die. But I was also scared. I just wanted to go far away. To remove myself from everybody. But between me and any effort to grieve the hearts of everyone, was relentless love.
At the moment, any sense or care for life had left my body. I felt disconnected from everything immediately around me. I’d reached out to an old friend earlier that night in search of guidance and didn’t tell him what was wrong or the reason for my questions, but his words, once considered, talked me back into a place of safety and awareness.
God’s voice would calm my heart. It wasn’t until I held my arm up and allowed Him to inspect my wounds, thoroughly, that He began to treat them. During this time, I still had to wait for Him to send the materials needed to clean, soothe, and patch up the wound. He sent people and community, those who would genuinely embrace me and see my story through, to the end. Additionally, like real cuts, they take time to dry, recuperate and scab. Wounds pray to become scars someday, and scars rarely reflect on the days they were once wounds. But God still advised, “wait here until I come back with what you need.” Waiting, then, was revealed to me as a part of the relationship between God and humanity we can’t bypass. But freedom is on the other side.
Impatience and anxiety tempt us to leave the waiting room when we might be up next. They make rest feel like you’re lazy and inactivity like you’re being idle. God will order and number your steps and one hundred of your own don’t compare to five of His footprints. He is the biggest stepper. We move with quick feet, He takes long strides. Trust the process, and trust that time is also in your corner because we know the One who holds it.
Told By: Kwon
