The Weight of Waiting

By: Robyn Mullin, Director of Dutilh Preschool

We spend a lot of our lives waiting, often more than we want.  We wait in traffic creeping forward a few feet at a time.  We wait at doctor’s offices, waiting for our name to be called.  We wait in the never-ending pick-up lines for our kids, letting out sighs of impatience. 

But beyond these everyday moments, there are deeper times of waiting.  The moments that settle into our hearts and stay a while.  We wait for the special moments in life, opportunities, relationships, doors to open, for clarity in life.  Waiting in these places tests us in ways a long line never could. 

Patience doesn’t come naturally for most of us, we’re wired to want things now.  If we’re waiting on someone we love, that makes the ache intensify.  We begin the “what ifs,” the unknown, and wanting solutions.  Yet, God reminds us that His plan is bigger, wiser and better than anything we could fathom on our own.  He says in Luke 17:6 “If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you!”

I’ve sat in the waiting.  My parents once waited for me.  They prayed for me, believed for me and hoped for me.  My mother once told me she held on to the belief that you have the faith as small as a mustard seed, anything is possible.  She never stopped praying and believing that someday I would return.  After nearly nine years, I did.  Looking back, their waiting wasn’t passive, it was faithful, steady and rooted in love.

Now I find myself in a similar moment.  My son, Cole, has chosen to live with his father and has stopped speaking to me.  The pain is real; the hurt is strong; the silence is heavy.  Each day though, I carry the mustard seed of faith.  I believe that one day the relationship will heal.  Some days that seed feels incredibly small, but it’s still there, and always will be. 

And maybe that’s what waiting is all about, not perfection or certainty. Just the courage to hold on to hope, even when our hearts feel tired.

So, I’m writing, praying and trusting that God is still working.  Even when I can’t see it. If you’re waiting too, I hope you find peace in this; even the smallest seed of faith is enough for God to grow something beautiful in His perfect timing.