The waiting room

There are no clocks in the waiting room of Heaven.

No windows to tell you how long the night has lasted.

No calendar to count how many prayers have gone unanswered.

This is where I am.

Not in the place of breakthrough.

Not in the place of clarity.

But in the hollow hush of “not yet.”

I am sitting in the space between the promise and the fulfillment, and my hands are empty.

My heart, heavy.

My prayers, tear-stained.

I used to think He was only the God of miracles.

The God of open doors and sudden deliverance.

The God of yes.

But I’ve come to know Him in a different way now.

He is the God of the waiting room.

He sits beside me in the long silence, when the answers don’t come.

He is here in the midnight hour, when I’m too weary to hope.

He catches my tears in bottles no one sees, when I’ve run out of eloquent prayers and can only groan.

And somehow His nearness does not demand an explanation.

It is the answer.

Even in the dark, He is Light.

Not just the Light at the end of the tunnel,

But the Light within it.

Even in the ache, He is near.

Not the nearness that always changes things,

But the nearness that changes me.

Even when the heavens feel sealed, and the silence feels like punishment,

He is still Emmanuel.

God with us.

God with me.

Even here.

So I whisper it, with trembling lips and breaking voice:

He is still good.

Not because the story ended how I wanted.

Not because I got the answer I begged for.

But because I’ve met Him in the hallway between heartbreak and healing.

And He is holy here.

I’ll keep coming.

Not because I’m brave,but because He is faithful.

I’ll keep knocking.

Not because the door always swings wide, but because He’s on the other side.

I’ll keep praying.

Not to twist His hand, but to trust His heart.

Because even in the silence…

Even in the stillness…

Even in the long, slow ache of hope deferred…

I have heard the sacred echo of His love reverberating through the hollow places of my soul.

And that echo…

That echo is enough to keep me breathing.

To keep me believing.

To keep me waiting.

Because the waiting room is not void of His presence.

It is saturated with it.

And sometimes His presence is the only answer I need.