Wait is a Four-Letter WordSample

Day 7: Waiting Gives Us Gifts

Even when we don’t receive the miracle of yes—the last-minute save, the surprise happy ending—we still receive other gifts through waiting. They might not have fireworks and fanfare, but they are gifts nonetheless. 

The gift of love

If you dare to share your struggles with friends—even when you’d rather keep them to yourself—you open yourself up to receive care and kindness. You find out how much people love you. You find goodness in unexpected places. You receive love from the family of God. Support. Prayer. Encouragement. Comfort. Maybe a pie or two. 

The gift of purpose 

How can your story help others? You may not be ready now, but maybe one day, when you are traveling a more peaceful leg of your journey, you will find words to share. Stories to tell. Comfort to pass on (2 Corinthians 1:3–7). You will look back with a jolt of joy and think, God is using my loss for good!

The gift of growth

Growth is how we partner with God to make life count and to give time purpose (2 Peter 1:3–11). We are not just twiddling our thumbs, waiting for something to happen. 

Waiting forges things in our hearts that cannot be wrought any other way. 

Do I look back on the years my husband and I spent begging God to give us children, and think, I’m so glad all my friends had babies before me? No, I don’t. Can I say that everything that came from those years was good? No, I can’t. 

But I can say that I am deeply thankful for the person I became because of those years, that suffering. I stand forever changed. Waiting has transformed everything: how I connect with God, how I read the Bible, how I view myself, what I expect from life, and how I minister to hurting people. For those things—those gifts—I am thankful.

At journey’s end

What will your story be? 

I pray that you keep praying. 

Keep resisting the pitfalls. 

Keep choosing joy on your journey, wherever it leads.

At journey’s end, I pray you look back and say, “I’m better because of the wait.” At journey’s end, I pray you lift hands to heaven, tears in your eyes and praise in your heart,saying, “It was worth the wait.”

 This plan is excerpted from Elizabeth Laing Thompson’s book When God Says, “Wait.” Available wherever books are sold.