The Weight of the Wait

It’s the wait, for me. Those in-between times when there’s nothing you can do but wonder if this is the time it works. It’s the wait for the fertility window to be open. It’s the wait for the period to be near. It’s the damned three minute wait between peeing on the stick and the line appearing. It’s the wait for the period to arrive and the wait for it to leave before the fertility window is open once more.

It’s one long wait with little waits in between and the weight of the wait takes its toll. You’ll hear people say “it’s when you stop trying that it’ll happen!” but do you ever stop trying, or do you just get tired of hoping and try to forget what you’ve been longing for? (Spoiler alert: you cannot forget, it does not work.)

In the midst of the weight of the wait, I’ve found that bearing it has given me strength that I did not see coming. Muscle is built slowly and so too is hope. It is not wrapped in a bow and handed to you, but cultivated with each moment of deciding to step forward and believe that there is good here and now and that there is good yet to come. That, perhaps, this is the month that the line becomes lines and there will be tears of joy. Perhaps.

I always thought that when Paul spoke of suffering producing perseverance, perseverance character, and character, hope… that suffering was acute and momentary. But hope can be hard won and hope can be held through disappointments though itself, it never disappoints. It’s the hope that sees a spare room, that we dream of being a nursery, filled with a precious teenager who needs a safe space. It’s the hope that sees us celebrating friend’s holding little ones after loss and pain. It’s the hope that sees us paddling on Lake Burley Griffin as hot air balloons rise, because though the blessing we long for is not here, there are blessings that are unique to this season. It’s the hope that the Spirit whispers reminders of that we are loved, we are held, we are known and we are not forsaken — never forsaken — by the one who calls us His and into His family.

It’s is the hope cultivated as the garden grows and as the seeds sewn earlier grow into blooms, reminders that though we wait to see the blossoms that they do come… they do. It’s a muscle that’s forming and building and sometimes it hurts so much that walking another step seems impossible. But the hurt heals and the steps continue… step, wait, step, wait, step step, sit and wait.

So many will never sit here. But so many will. We talk of it in whispers, did you know? The loudest we will ever speak of it is if the moment comes when we hold an ultrasound in our hands and a tiny human in our bodies, because the wait has changed… it is now, literally, a pregnant pause until life changes.

It’s the wait, for me. And perhaps, you wait too.

The weight of the wait is a burden that leaves us breathless sometimes. But, you and I, we do not have to bear it alone.