“How do you wait well?” she asked. The question was posed in our writing group. She’d been waiting for weeks on news that would propel her life in one direction or another.

Goodness knows I’ve done my share of waiting. We all have. In fact, my gut tells me that there’s at least one big thing you’re waiting on right now and you know what it is to slog through weeks and months and even years of waiting.

Maybe it’s something you long for, maybe a good and even godly longing, but it has yet to happen.

Maybe it’s something you’ve prayed for — God tells us we have not because we ask not — so you’ve prayed and asked God to move or to remove, but it has yet to happen.

Maybe it’s something God called you to and you gulped down fear and stepped out in big faith, but now find yourself waiting because it has yet to happen.

And that wait is hard.

Waiting is its own brand of hard — different from the crisis of a health diagnosis or the gut-wrenching pain of loss or the practical kick that comes with financial problems.

But here’s the thing: waiting is meant to be hard.

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It’s been several weeks of back-to-back big issues. If hard things come in threes, I’ve been over limit.

First, we learned that while my daughter was on a mission trip in Brazil, Hurricane Michael wiped out her belongings in storage. On the heels of that, we had a health scare that sent us scurrying for tests and searching for answers. A different report came in raising concerns for one child at the same time I was walking another through heavy decisions. And that Saturday, as I was prepping to meet some friends, a pipe burst spewing water across the utility room into the kitchen before we could get the water turned off.

I stayed steady through the first couple of issues, handling each one as it came. But when they piled on, I began to buckle under the collective weight.

As a single mom, no one person in my life knew all of it. Some knew parts, but some were too personal to share.

And while I’ve learned these last seven years to take my need to God, the sheer weight taxed every bit of my emotional reserves and maxed out my mental space.

I began to get scatterbrained. It wasn’t so bad when I left a roast and vegetables on the counter overnight.

But two days later, I lost some very important papers. This type-B girl had been so organized! I sorted them, used them for online forms and then – poof. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I did with them next.

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Ever have one of those weeks filled so back to back that you lived a week’s worth by Tuesday? That was me last week.

Tuesday evening, trying to eke out a deadline, I fell asleep with my laptop open before ever hitting submit.

Wednesday I was still holding everything together pretty well but the afternoon took a hard left. For the rest of the week, I found myself handling one after another weighty issues.

Sometimes life piles on.

I was okay with the first couple of big things, but by the end of the week I was staggering under the weight of them altogether.

“I want to clock out!” my mind groaned. Weeks like that tempt me to give in and give up.

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O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago. Isaiah 25:1

We roll out of bed on Monday and plunge headlong after our agenda. We’ve got a list of things to do and a full week of tasks and most Mondays start with tackling the list.

My Sunday night washed into my Monday morning and I woke up with such sadness. I was in the middle of the post-church lunch prep yesterday when my phone buzzed. I didn’t recognize the number so I let it go. A few minutes later, it buzzed again. Same number. They’ll leave a message, I thought. A few minutes later, my phone buzzed a third time, but again without a message.

And then I got a text: “If this is your number, Lisa, this is {childhood friend}. Please call.”

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