The Work & Wonder of Waiting

An Advent encouragement to embrace this present moment

Staring at the clock.

Listening for the phone.

Sitting at the bus stop.

Standing in line.

Yearning for Manchester United to be good again.

Waiting.

I hate waiting. Waiting snidely reminds me how little control I have. It forces me into my seat. Compels me to stop moving. Stop growing. Stop making progress and being efficient with my life. It forces me to stop. And I like to keep it pushing.

So when people tell me that Advent, this season before Christmas, is about waiting there’s a part of me that’s like, “Thank you, next!” I’ve got quite enough of that.

But there’s another part of me. A part that’s tired of the next thing. A part that needs to be here. Now. A part that desires the inner quiet that comes from not needing to go anywhere or do anything. A part that desires the virtue of patience. I just wish that patience wasn’t so passive.

But I’m learning true waiting is anything but.

The Work of Waiting

The nine months before our son, Micah, was born were full of waiting. Waiting for the next ultrasound. Waiting for test results. Waiting for him to be born. In fact, he came into the world ten days after his due date and just one day before Steph was scheduled to be induced. Talk about waiting.

(Side note: We even ate the famous Prego Pizza at Skipolini’s in Walnut Creek. They claim the four-pound pie is labor inducing and that it is “recommended by doctors and OBGYN’s everywhere.” Be skeptical if you want. She went into labor in less than 24 hours.)

But the truth about waiting for Micah is that it was anything but passive. Those nine months were filled with preparation and anticipation. Ultrasounds and Bradley method classes and building furniture. Reading baby books and researching strollers. Waiting was hard and necessary work—physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

To illustrate how valuable that waiting period is, I sometimes imagine what it would be like if babies were born not nine months after conception, but nine days. Can you imagine the chaos?

Perhaps, more often than not, a moment or a week or a season of waiting is a gift in which we can prepare for the future God has for us. Waiting is an invitation into preparation.

The Wonder of Waiting

But if all we do in a season of waiting is fill it with tasks and projects, then we will miss the even deeper gift of waiting.

That gift is wonder born of patience.

Patience is the practice of waiting. A patient person is actively attentive to the present moment. As Henri Nouwen once wrote:

A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. The moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her.¹

There was a wonder in those nine months that was sweet to savor.

Watching Steph’s growing belly.

Staring at the ultrasound photo of 7mm long Micah.

Listening to the thump, thump, thump of his first little kicks.

This too is waiting.

And this marveling at the glory of life cannot be rushed. I’ve never seen a person in awe and in a hurry.

John Green, in his beautiful book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, tells a story about learning from his child to marvel again at the beauty of a brown, fallen leaf. He writes:

Marveling at the perfection of that leaf, I was reminded that aesthetic beauty is as much about how and whether you look as what you see. From the quark to the supernova, the wonders do not cease. It is our attentiveness that is in short supply, our ability and willingness to do the work that awe requires.

There’s Something About Mary

Mary, the mother of Jesus, faced the longest nine months any mother has ever faced. Can you imagine, an angel from God appears to you and tells you that you will be giving birth to the savior of the world. Now…wait.

The anticipation must have been excruciating.

But by all accounts, it appears that Mary was the type of person who was attentive to the present. Every moment was pregnant with meaning and purpose. Twice, the Gospel of Luke describes her response to life this way:

“Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” Luke 2:19

I took the picture above at the Abbey of the Genesee in upstate New York while on retreat there this October.² In it, Mary holds her baby, gazing into his eyes as mothers often do, studying him. Meditating on his face. Sculptures can only capture a moment, but the moment it captures is the heartbreaking beauty of Mary’s nurturing patience. Her capacity for wonder. Her willingness to do the work that awe requires.

So in the end, perhaps waiting is both work and wonder. Not a break from life, but an invitation into it.

1. Henri Nouwen in Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit quoted in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, 32.

2. I was there with a group of pastors hosted by Cultivate Renewal. If you’re a ministry leader in need of spiritual refreshment, space, silence, and psalms, I can’t recommend them enough.