Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:24-25, NRSVCE)
Let’s be honest. Waiting is not very exciting or fun.
“The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual struggle against self,” St. Padre Pio said. “There is no flowering of the soul to the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain.”
That is not to discount the many moments of joy and wonder in our lives: the sacraments. A treasured moment with a loved one. Time with a
Michelangelo sculpture, a Tissot painting, a Mozart composition. The changing of seasons.
But more time is spent in routine, ordinary, everyday waiting on God. We wait for Him to illumine our way or relieve our distress or answer our prayers in some other way. The waiting can seem interminable. And pain—spiritual, mental, emotional, physical—often is part of that waiting.
The waiting is all the harder because for most of us, the Lord is not present in ways we can see, hear, touch, or taste, especially in those dark moments. We feel very, very alone.
So we hope. We endure. Because in the final analysis, all we have is our faith, which fuels our hope and patience. Like the yeast in the parable, it may seem small and inadequate. It may not be very exciting or fun. But it provides everything—everything—we need.
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