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Waiting Rooms

 Waiting Rooms

The hardest part about waiting isn’t the outcome. It’s the chairs. Every waiting room has the same ones: vinyl cushions that squeak when you shift your weight, bolted to the floor like you’re not to be trusted with mobility. Beige walls, fluorescent lights, a clock that ticks louder than your heartbeat.


Every waiting room has the same plants too- fake ferns that haven’t grown an inch in 30 years. At least somebody in the room is thriving.


Hospitals. Courtrooms. ERs. They all smell the same too- like bleach and fear. More fear than bleach. 


You sit there pretending to read the outdated magazine, flipping pages you’ll never remember. You sip the free coffee that tastes like scorched cardboard. You rehearse conversations that will never happen. And mostly- you watch the door.


You’re waiting not just for news. You’re waiting for relief. For someone to call your name and hand you your life back.


The thing about waiting rooms is they’re designed for passivity. Sit…. Wait.

Behave. 

But your body doesn’t cooperate. Your leg bounces. Your mind screams. Your soul feels like it might claw its way out of your chest.


In the waiting rooms of life, time doesn’t move forward. It circles. And if you’re not careful, it convinces you that you’ll never leave.


Every waiting room has a door. And eventually, someone opens it.


Not always with the answer you wanted. Not always with a miracle. But with enough of a crack to remind you that waiting isn’t forever.


Waiting feels like drowning in beige.  But hope can sneak in anywhere- even under fluorescent lights.


“Be still before the Lord and 

wait patiently for him.”



-Psalm 37:7
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