When waiting kind of sucks (and peace still finds us)

Advent is a time of anticipation. It’s a liminal space. A space between. A season of waiting.

We see it everywhere. In the biblical story, people are waiting for a savior. In the rhythms of the Church, we build toward the moment when we proclaim, “Hope has arrived. The wait is over.” And in our homes, we’re decorating, cooking, showing up to event after event—maybe exhausted, maybe soaking in the buzz of it all.

So much fills this time of anticipation. 

And yet these times of liminality, our times of waiting and in-between, often look a lot less buzzy in our spirits than in the modern Advent season. These times, as they play out within us, are slower. Quieter. More tender. More uncomfortable.

When I think of my own times of waiting or those I’ve walked through alongside others, I’m struck by how deeply unsettling they can be. In the Bible, Mary also knew what it meant to be faced with fear, confusion, and uncertainty. Waiting isn’t as fun as the Christmas season. Most of the time it just… sucks. It demands the mental gymnastics of trying to stay present while also believing something might be better on the other side.

Waiting for job security. 
Waiting for financial stability. 
Waiting for a pregnancy. 
Waiting for relief from a medical crisis. 
Waiting for clarity, for healing, for the next right thing.
Waiting for a partner or waiting for your partner to get the help they need.
Waiting for relationships to mend.
Waiting for news from the therapist, the doctor, the school, the bank.
Waiting for a door—any door—to open.

In this year’s Advent time, the Harbor community is focusing on peace. At last week’s gathering, Dawn described God’s peace as one of flourishing for all people. 

How might we find peace in waiting? How might we find our own flourishing and the flourishing of all of creation while so much is still so unsettled? 

These questions—and our searching for peace—can feel so tender and fragile. We all know how deeply unstable the times we are in have been, and yet we hold on to glimpses of something being better in the future. 

This last year, my husband and I experienced so much liminality. We were drowning and knew we needed several things in our life to change. We would repeat this phrase over and over again: “Something's gotta come through.” And the reality is that it was super tender and painful to keep saying that. But it kept us pressing on to what was ahead; it kept us from being swallowed in despair. And also, when eventually things did come through, we experienced relief. We had known deep in our bones that what was waiting for us on the other side would be better. But how would we get there? 

This might be a silly example, but as my husband and I kept desperately repeating, “Something’s gotta come through,” we also tried our best to practice our agency: go for a run, take the kids to new beaches, laugh a lot, lean into community, meet new neighbors. 

Practicing peace in our waiting doesn’t mean instant resolution—it means we search for our flourishing, we contribute to other people’s flourishing, even as so much is still unsettled. 

Something’s gotta come through. And it will.

But as we wait, may we find peace right where we are.