“Come on back,” the nurse says, ushering us into the triage room. He checks my son’s temperature and vitals, and leads us to another small room where we wait.
We peel off our winter coats. Anxiety squeezes tight in my chest as I watch my feverish son and try not to let my mind tumble into the worst what-ifs. He has a chronic illness and a compromised immune system. Every high fever wins us a trip to the emergency room. I shift on the plastic chair and try to remember everything I know about who God is.
God is good. God is near. God is in the wait.
And we wait.
We wait to be seen by a nurse, then a medical student, then a doctor. We wait for labs. We wait for chest X-rays. We wait for a diagnosis. We wait for an IV. We wait for medicine. We wait for news.
We wait. And wait. And wait.
I try to pray, but my heart could run laps over the beeping monitor my son is hooked up to.
I take a deep breath. Make a joke with a nurse. Try to be a calming presence instead of an anxious one. Watch cartoons with my teenage son as the clock passes 11 p.m., then midnight.
“It’s a new day,” my son says, watching the time tick by.
We don’t know if there will be a hospital admission. We don’t know what’s causing the fever.
We wait.
Sometimes the only prayer we can pray is borrowed from David’s in Psalm 13:1: How long, O Lord?
This life of ours is rife with waiting. Advent teaches us that sitting in the waiting room is holy — that the ache for things to be made right is part of our story as people of God.
Our hearts beat for the One who makes all things new, the Light who “shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (John 1:5 NLT). The One who breathes peace into every anxious corner of our lives.
Just when I begin to think we’re spending the night in the emergency room, a doctor walks in. The waiting culminates in good news: we can monitor at home.
For centuries, creation held its breath, waiting for the incarnation — the breaking in of God in human form. As the prophet Isaiah says, “Those who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2 NLT).
One emergency room visit didn’t instantly cure my son’s pneumonia, and it sure didn’t take away his chronic illness. It took more medicine, more time, more waiting. As I write this, he’s still home from school, waiting for his body to heal.
This is our life: we wait, and we wait some more. Jesus broke into our world so many years ago, and still we wait for Him to come again. We light the Advent candles and wait for Christmas to remember the birth of the Prince of Peace. We wait to experience even the faintest glimmer of the fullness of time breathed into our weary world.
What are you waiting for right now? Hope where there seems to be none? Peace for your weary soul? The ability to laugh again without forcing it?
Maybe you’re waiting for test results or for a relationship to heal. Maybe you’re waiting to finally exhale after months of stress. Maybe you’re waiting for clarity on a decision, for a job to come through, for a season of loneliness to lift, or simply for one night of uninterrupted sleep.
Whatever it is you’re waiting for, you are not alone in the ache.
Christmas is so near — the manger is closer than it has been all year. We’re almost there. Yes, we wait. But as Advent reminds us, year after year, we do not wait as people without hope.
Borrow this breath prayer as you wait:
INHALE: God of hope
EXHALE: We wait for You
As you move through this day and toward Christmas, remember: Immanuel — God with us — sits with you in the waiting room.
God-morning Kayla, what a beautiful and transformative piece of writing. I will be repeating your words from today on when I inhale and exhale in my waiting moments.
Merry CHRISTmas to you and your family. Thanking God for your gift of sharing His aura.
Blessings,
Angela Bellamy Johnson
Thank you for reading and for your kind words, Angela! Merry Christmas!
I am in a “waiting” season. This article really spoke to my heart and blessed me. I’m praying healing for your son. Blessings to you!
I’m grateful these words found you. May you feel God’s love in the wait.
Thank you. The “waiting room” can be lonely and scary. It can also be peaceful when you remember He is always with you, when you feel His presence, when you just stop-breathe-pray.
Blessings to you and your family!
Yes! Thank you, Linda. Merry Christmas!
Kayla, I feel your pain on the waiting. Thank you for the breath prayer. I’m praying for your son’s (and you and your family) health.
Thank you, Cheyla! Praying the breath prayer alongside you. ❤️ Merry Christmas!
That was absolutely beautiful Kayla. Thank you. Just what I needed to slow down and remember as I wait and hope.
I pray for healing for your son, that hospital visits are fewer, days at school become more and that Christmas fills you and your family with peace and joy.
Thank you so much, Nicole. I hope you have a blessed Christmas week!
Dear Kayla…Your devotion today touched my heart in many ways. First, I pray for your family and your son that he heals, but as you wrote, “The Wait”. I am in a very serious ache in my heart now for 5 years and the Wait seems like forever. It is really painful and I pray constantly. Sometimes it hurts so much, I wonder what I did wrong that this is God’s plan for me. It involves my whole immediate family and their abandonment of me 5 years ago. The biggest part of this very long story is my son called me a liar and he does not consider me his mother anymore and to add to that , he said that he and his wife (who has hated me since before they even got engaged) would never let me see or even talk to my 1 grandchild, a now 15 years old grandson. 5 years they have blocked every form of communication I had, even destroying any cards I would send to him.Christmas is a very emotional time for me as I am 78 years old and the rest of my family has gone to Heaven to be with Jesus. So this is my 5th Christmas alone (human being wise), but I know that God and Jesus and my beloved Holy Spirit will help me to get through this. Thank you Kayla for helping me today with your words. You did make me smile which the usual smile is forced, but this one was a real smile. I am happy that your son was able to go home with you from the hospital and I know that Jesus will take him in his arms and hold tight to him and the rest of your family. Merry Christmas !! Love, Betsy
Thank you for reading and sharing, Betsy. May you feel God’s love this Christmas season.
Kayla, this is a wonderful reminder of God’s presence! Having spent countless hours in waiting rooms over my past 73 years, recalling your words will bring me peace the next time.
Between my youngest daughter’s chronic illness, my husband’s multiple heart issues and just the fleeting ordinary injuries and illnesses, God will meet us there. Comforting.
Yes! Thank you for reading, Irene. Sending you love this Christmas.
Kayla everything you said in the devotional you wrote today. My Husband will never forget on Christmas when I took my first seizure and more since. He said it was the most frightening thing to see as he didn’t know what was happening to me all thoes years ago one Christmas day. When we should have been enjoying it. It was because of womans problems I took them in the first place because my hormones went up the left. My Mum I remember and my Husband standing crying and I couldn’t say because I was so ill. Tell them I love them don’t cry over me God is in control of everything. I was too ill to see God was in control of everything. When you see a loved one not well as you Kayla as you know panic can set in. You are to wrap up in worry in all your going through to see God is by your side with his loving arms around you and all your going through to even think of praying. As like my Husband you begin to think will they be ok no matter what they are going through. We had our bad days with me not being well with seizures. It been very hard. In the end I had to have hysterectomy to try and stop my women’s problems every month as they throw me into seizures But I still have them because going into Menopause as you still do with a hysterectomy. But because of us turning to God in prayer as we had no one else. We stood on the promises of his word as well. God has been faithful and we are truly grateful for that. As I don’t have near as many seizures now as I did in the past as did years ago. I look at all this and say there are People alot worse than me. Like in hospital with cancer and only so long to live. That hard for them and their Families. So in all I have been through and still do go through the seizures but not as many now. That I am on the right medication for my seizures and God with me. I have alot to think God for. I was watching a Doctors programme one time. This man came in to see the Doctor this day and the Doctor asked him how he was. The man replied each day is good day you can get out of bed and put your feet on thd ground. I had to agree with that man for saying that as so very day. I thank God for everyday he gives me another day to live. Like theses to verses in the Psalms. Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be thankful” Psalm 150:6 ” Let everything that has breath praise the Lord praise the Lord” those verses say it all no matter what challenges we go through in our lives. A person I know who is saved said to me with God you have nothing how true that is. God in all our waiting rooms no matter what we go through or face like my Husband and my late Mum when I took my first seizures that first Christmas. I also when people ask about me how are you Dawn. I say am ok I am not seriously ill or got cancer or not in Hospital I have got God. Love today’s devotional you wrote. Love Dawn Ferguson-Little Enniskillen Co.Fermanagh N.Ireland xx
The beautiful truth of your words has shone a tender light in the dark and lonely place of my own season of waiting in chronic illness. Your honesty and wisdom have lifted the eyes of my heart to look to Jesus. Bless you.