Waiting Without Losing Yourself

Carol keeps eleven hives behind the house her husband built before he passed. She can tell you the exact week each one will need feeding before she ever lifts a lid. What she can't tell you is whether her son will call this holiday season, or the one after that, or ever again.

He stopped coming home the year the hives went from three to eleven. Grief, she has decided, needs somewhere to go, and hers went into bees.

What Beekeepers Know About Winter

Every October Carol wraps the boxes for winter. She tucks in just enough honey to carry the colonies through, then closes the lids on bees she won't be able to check again until spring.

Opening a hive in the cold doesn't help anything. It only lets the warmth out and breaks apart what the bees have built to survive. So for months, all she can do is stand in the yard on quiet afternoons, watching for the faint haze of steam that rises off a healthy cluster on a cold morning, and trust what she cannot see.

Many of us are living in a winter like that.

Two Ways to Wait

On her worst days, Carol used to press her ear to the boxes. When the anxiety got too loud, she would pry a lid open just to check, the way you poke a wound to see if it is healing. Some winters that habit cost her a colony.

The same thing can happen inside us. With each silent holiday and each birthday without a call, we pry the wound open again and let the cold in. Resentment settles where hope used to be. We start to resent the families at church whose children come home. Some days we even resent God for asking us to wait so long.

But beekeepers have another way. Instead of opening the box, they lift it. They test the weight with their hands and trust that there is still enough inside.

We can bring our waiting to God the same way. Tell Him honestly how long it has been and how much it hurts. Then leave the lid closed. Forgive the empty chair. Pick back up the things you put on hold. Tend what is in front of you, and trust Him with what you cannot see.

A Man Who Waited Well

Luke introduces us to someone who knew how to wait:

"Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him." Luke 2:25

Simeon was probably an old man. God had promised he would not die before he saw the Messiah, but God never told him when. So Simeon kept showing up at the temple, year after year, watching every family that walked through the gate.

Then one ordinary day a young couple came to offer what the Law required for their firstborn son. Nothing about them would have drawn a crowd. But Simeon took the baby in his arms and said:

"Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation." Luke 2:29–30

Notice what changed in that moment. Rome still ruled. Israel was still occupied. Nothing about Simeon's circumstances was different from the day before. What changed was that he had seen Christ, and that was enough. His peace didn't wait for the outcome. It came when he encountered Jesus.

Peace That Doesn't Wait for the Phone to Ring

Your peace was never meant to wait for the phone to ring. That doesn't mean you stop hoping or stop praying. It means you can live fully today, in the waiting, instead of postponing every joy until the answer comes.

This week, notice one thing you have been treating as "on hold": a friendship, a hobby, your own joy. Pick it back up, not as a distraction from the waiting, but as a quiet act of trust.

"But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

The bees were never waiting on Carol to check. They were doing their own quiet work in the dark. So is God. Both winters end in spring. Only one leaves your heart alive to enjoy it.

Robin Sampson is the author of When the Bond Breaks: Biblical Hope for Parents of Estranged Adult Children, now in final editing. Read the free 46-page preview. Join our private Facebook group for parents of estranged adult children.