wait

The Waiting Room

Lately, I feel as though I’ve been sitting in a waiting room, wondering what God will do next. Waiting has never been easy for me. The longer I sit, the more restless I become. The more restless I become, the more I try to help. I convince myself that if I work harder, post more, create more, push more, something will finally stick. Somewhere along the way, the metrics became louder than the mission. The numbers began speaking before God did. The “why” that started all of this? The desire to help others through my experiences, to offer hope through my words, slowly moved to the back of the line while likes, views, followers, and engagement took its seat at the front.

Suddenly, when those numbers stopped showing up the way I wanted them to, so did my confidence. Questions I never used to ask started creeping in. Are my words good enough? Am I enough? Am I worthy of calling myself a writer? A poet? An author? Does any of this matter? What began as disappointment quickly turned into blame. Blaming myself, blaming the algorithm, blaming everything except the truth. The truth is that not everything can be forced, quite frankly, nothing can be forced. Not everything can be controlled, and maybe that’s the lesson God has been trying to teach me all along.

Waiting exposes the places where trust is still under construction. It reveals how quickly I reach for control when uncertainty makes me uncomfortable. It’s like a child asking their parents to make cookies. The parent says, “sit down and wait”. Instead of waiting, the child wanders into the kitchen. They grab the mixing spoon. They reach for the flour. They stick their hands in the dough. Before long, the ingredients are scattered everywhere, and a mess has been made of something that was already being prepared. How often do we do the same thing with God? God asks us to wait, we ask for updates. God asks us to trust; we start taking over. God asks us to sit at the table; we walk into the kitchen and start grabbing ingredients.

Why are we always in such a hurry? Why is waiting so uncomfortable? Why do we fight so hard for control when we’ve seen time and time again, that God does his best work without our interference? I think to myself, maybe this season isn’t about growing my audience, maybe it’s about growing my faith. Maybe the slowing down is intentional, maybe the silence has something to teach me, maybe the waiting room isn’t punishment after all, maybe it’s preparation. Quite literally preparation.

A waiting room exists between where you’ve been and where you’re meant to go. You’re simply in the middle, waiting for your name to be called, trusting that when the door finally opens, you’ll be exactly where you’re supposed to be and all you can do is sit with that uncertainty. No one expects to live in the waiting room, it’s a temporary space, a place between departure and arrival. A place where nothing appears to be happening, yet everything necessary is quietly unfolding.

So, for now, I wait. Of course, there will be moments of doubt and questions, but I will have an understanding that my worth was never supposed to be measured by numbers. My purpose was never meant to be determined by engagement, and my calling was never dependent on an algorithm. While I sit in this waiting room, I am learning patience, trust and remembering my “why”. Most importantly, I am remembering that God never asked me to carry the weight of the outcome. God only asked me to be faithful; the rest has always belonged to God.

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