It has been over a year since I found out I had cancer. Looking back, one of the toughest times was the waiting for test results. Not the treatment. Not the diagnosis itself. The waiting. Knowing the result could be a drastic life change. Knowing that somewhere in a lab, someone was looking at something that would either let you exhale or rearrange your entire world. And you’re just sitting there. Checking your phone. Pretending to watch TV. Not really watching anything.
A friend’s son was going through his own version of this. His wife applied to several med schools in several cities. Which city would be their new home? Would it be the one near family, or the one fourteen hours away? Would they be packing for a place they’d never even visited? They couldn’t plan. They couldn’t nest. They couldn’t even argue about which neighborhood to live in, because they didn’t know the zip code yet.
The details were completely different from mine. Nobody’s life was in danger. But the feeling? The feeling was the same. You’re standing in a doorway and you can’t go back into the room you came from, and you can’t walk forward yet. You’re just standing in the frame.
There’s a quote I love: “Worry is like paying on a debt you may never owe.” And that’s the thing about the waiting game — your brain starts writing checks. What if it’s bad? What if we end up in a city where we don’t know anyone? What if the treatment doesn’t work? What if she doesn’t get in at all? You’re making payments on a bill that hasn’t arrived yet. You might never owe it. But you’re paying anyway.
Joseph understood this better than anyone. Not the Joseph with the manger — the other one. The one with the coat and the brothers who threw him in a pit.
Joseph ended up in an Egyptian prison because he did the right thing (Genesis 39). Potiphar’s wife lied about him, and he went from managing a household to rotting in a cell. But even in prison, God was with him, and Joseph became the guy who could interpret dreams. He interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker — one would be restored, one would be executed. He got them both right. And he asked the cupbearer one thing: remember me when you get out. Put in a word. Tell someone I’m here.
“Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.”
— Genesis 39:20
The cupbearer forgot. For two years (Genesis 40:23–41:1).
“The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.”
— Genesis 40:23
Two years. No notification. No update. No “we’re still processing your request.” Just silence. And here’s what gets me about Joseph — he didn’t have the privilege of distractions. No phone to scroll. No Netflix to numb out with. No group text where friends send you memes to keep your spirits up. Just a cell and his thoughts and the slow passing of days where nothing happened and nothing changed and no one came.
We at least get to doom-scroll while we wait. Joseph just had walls.
And yet Joseph didn’t come out of that prison bitter. When Pharaoh finally called for him, Joseph showed up sharp, present, ready. He interpreted the dreams, laid out a plan, and went from prisoner to second-in-command of Egypt in a single afternoon (Genesis 41:14–43). The waiting didn’t break him. It somehow prepared him.
“So Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was quickly brought from the dungeon. When he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came before Pharaoh.”
— Genesis 41:14
I wish I could tell you I was that composed waiting for my results. I was not. I Googled things I absolutely should not have Googled. I continued with life. There were moments I would forget I was waiting. Then there were moments — in the middle of a conversation or an email — where I would remember. I was still in that doorway. Was I walking straight or going left or right? I didn’t know. I was on pause.
But here’s what I’ve learned about the waiting game, looking back: the waiting is not nothing. It feels like nothing. It feels like your life is on pause while someone else holds the remote. But something is happening in you during the wait, even when nothing is happening around you.
Habakkuk knew this. He was a prophet who basically complained to God — why aren’t you doing anything? Why is everything terrible? And God’s answer wasn’t “here’s your timeline.” God’s answer was:
“For the vision awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”
— Habakkuk 2:3
Though it linger, wait for it.
I lived that verse for eight years with a lake house.
For eight years, I prayed for a lake home. I wanted our kids out of the suburbs catching crawdads. My husband was a hard sale. He’s not a lake guy. And every year I’d bring it up, and every year it didn’t happen, and every year I’d wonder if maybe this was one of those prayers God was answering with a “no.”
Then COVID happened. The world changed. And I got a lake house.
But here’s the part that still gets me: it was our lake minister who showed us the house. And when she brought our offer to the sellers — who had been praying for the right family to buy their home — the sellers said, “I guess when God shows up with an offer from the lake minister, He’s telling you this is the one to accept.”
Eight years. And when it happened, it happened in a way no one could have planned. We were praying on our side. They were praying on theirs. And God waited until the lake minister was the one standing in the middle to make sure everybody knew this wasn’t a coincidence.
That’s the thing about God’s timing — He’s never early, but He’s always right on time.
Joseph waited two years in a prison cell. I waited eight years for a lake house. The friend’s son waited months for a med school letter. The timescales are different. The stakes are different. But the doorway feels the same.
For Catholics, there’s a word for this in-between: purgatory. And I think we get it wrong most of the time. It’s not punishment. It’s the hallway. You’re not where you were and you’re not where you’re going. You’re being refined. The waiting is doing something to you — burning off the stuff that won’t serve you in whatever comes next, whether it’s the news you hoped for or the news you feared.
When my dad was in hospice, we were waiting. The hospice nurse told us, “I like to think of this time as the other side preparing for your dad’s arrival.” I like that thought too. Waiting can be brutal for us, but God is working. We just can’t see it YET!
The disciples lived their own version of this on Holy Saturday. Friday was the worst day of their lives. Sunday would be the best. But Saturday? Saturday they didn’t know Sunday was coming. They sat in that silence thinking the story was over. Thinking the waiting was pointless because there was nothing left to wait for.
They were wrong. But they didn’t know that yet.
And that’s the cruelest part of the waiting game — you don’t get to know the ending while you’re in the middle. You don’t get to skip to the last page. You just have to stand in the doorway and trust that you’ll know when it’s time to walk through.
My friend’s son? They got the call. They’re moving. It’s exciting and terrifying and exactly the kind of new chapter that makes you miss the doorway you were standing in five minutes ago.
My test results? Well, you’re reading this. So you know how that one turned out.
The lake house? It has been as good as I hoped. That answered prayer was exactly what I wanted. In those eight years, I checked out every lake within two hours of Kansas City. We even made an offer on another lake. That cabin didn’t have six kiddos my kids’ age. That cabin didn’t have a shelter that hosts church every Sunday during lake season — just a few footsteps outside my cabin for a Pontoon Christian like myself. We didn’t know what we needed, but God did. He wasn’t early, but right on time.
But I’m not going to pretend the waiting was easy. The waiting was its own thing. It cost something. And if you’re in it right now — if you’re waiting for the call, the letter, the scan, the answer — I want you to know: the waiting is not nothing. You’re not on pause. Something is being built in you that you’re going to need, whichever direction you go.
Stop paying on debts you don’t owe yet. The bill will come or it won’t. But right now, you’re standing in the doorway. And that’s okay.
He’s never early. But He’s always right on time.
My Prayer
God, give me the patience to stand in the doorway. Help me stop paying on debts I don’t owe yet. Remind me that Your timing is not my timing — and that You are working in the wait, even when I can’t see it. Amen.
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