When the Waiting Feels Endless

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes with waiting through grief. Waiting for your heart to let up. Waiting for the heaviness in your chest to lift, even a little. Waiting for some piece of life to feel normal again. During December, when the world feels like it’s rushing ahead with busy schedules and twinkling lights, waiting can feel even more painful. Everyone else seems to be anticipating and experiencing something good, while you’re still waiting for the ache to ease and wondering when it might ever feel different.

I remember those early months after losing my daughter, when the days felt incredibly long. The waiting was not passive. It was a full-body longing for relief, for clarity, and for hope that felt far away. I tried to tell myself to be patient, but I didn’t know how to steady my heart when every morning felt like waking up to the same painful reality. If I’m honest, the waiting made me feel behind, as if I wasn’t healing fast enough or trusting God deeply enough. But grief works slowly, and waiting is part of the landscape of loss. It’s unhurried and unpredictable, and for a grieving mom, it often feels like life is happening in slow motion while the rest of the world moves on without you.

When I think about waiting, I think about the Israelites. They knew what it meant to live in a long, aching in-between. For hundreds of years, they waited for God to speak again, for rescue, for the Messiah they had been promised. Their waiting wasn’t polished or serene. It was filled with crying out, longing, and wondering if God still saw them. They lived with a constant tension between what God had promised and what they could see in front of them. Their lives were shaped by hope and heartbreak at the same time.

I see so much of a Hope Mom’s journey in that story. We carry promises too. Promises of God’s nearness, His goodness, and His redemption. Yet we wake up each day in the tension of what hasn’t been healed, what hasn’t been fixed, and what hasn’t been restored yet. We live in the space between what we wanted and what is. We wait for our hearts to feel less raw. We wait for joy to return. We wait for the day we will hold our babies again. Our waiting, like theirs, is marked by longing and questions and a deep ache for what is still broken.

And into that kind of waiting, God brought light. Isaiah writes, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2). Light came not after the waiting was over, but in the middle of it. God stepped into the darkness they were living in, and He does the same for you. He is not waiting for your grief to resolve before He moves toward you. He is present in the slow, heavy, unchanging stretches of your story. He will not rush you through the waiting, but He will be with you in it.

If you find yourself feeling stuck or slow this December, that’s okay. But please remember you are not failing. You’re human. You’ve loved and lost deeply. Your heart is healing in its own time. God isn’t asking you to hurry or pretend the waiting is easy. He sees how long it has felt. He knows the longing that settles in your chest, and He meets you right there. Your waiting is not empty or wasted. It is held by a God who keeps His promises, even when the timeline feels too long.

This Advent season, I pray you’re reminded that hope really can grow even in the waiting. I pray you remember that God’s people waited a long time for the promised Messiah, and though their waiting was long and heavy, Jesus came when the timing was perfect. At times it must have felt too slow or too quiet, yet God was always moving toward His people, even when they couldn’t see it.

The same is true for us. We are a people living between two Advents. His Light came once, and it is coming again. Even when it feels like time is moving too slowly or too quietly, God is still moving faithfully. He promises to be near, and He keeps His promises. His presence remains steady, even when your heart is tired of holding on. Jesus is on His way again, and one day all will be made right. As Hebrews reminds us, “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him” (Hebrews 9:28). 

Because He lives, I hope,
Jennie

Jennie is the Executive Director for Hope Mommies. She and her husband Brian live in Oregon and have four children together— Trenton, Paige who has been in Heaven with Jesus since 2010, Mason, and Cora. If you were to knock on her front door today, you’d find her in something comfortable drinking a hot cup of tea, while trying to figure out how to balance all the things that make up a life. She enjoys spending time in God’s word, fresh flowers, board games with her kids, cooking, and evening walks in her neighborhood. She adores being a new creation in Christ and prays she reflects Him well on this earth.