THE SONG I SANG IN THE WAITING

Inspired by Psalm 40

He gave me a chapter to sing and I sang, though my voice was a whisper, though my heart was a wilderness, though the words on my lips were fighting the tears in my eyes.

He gave me Psalm 40, and I wondered how a woman standing in the middle of a pit could possibly sing about deliverance.

For I, too, had been waiting.

Waiting for a door to open that would not ask me to knock twice. Waiting for the kind of breakthrough that would make sense of all my breaking. Waiting for the morning to look different from the night before.

I had prayed until my words grew tired, knelt until my knees knew the floor, and held on to promises with hands that were beginning to tremble.

Lord, I have dreams that are growing impatient. There are versions of me I have not yet had the money to become, books I have not yet had the courage to open, and roads I have not yet had the strength to travel.

There are bills that do not understand prayer, needs that cannot be postponed until a miracle, and questions that follow me into the night like shadows that know my name.

Sometimes, I am tired of being strong. Tired of making peace with what hurts. Tired of telling myself that things will change when I have been waiting so long that even hope has begun to speak softly.

And yet, He gave me a chapter to sing.

Not Psalm 30, where mourning turns into dancing. Not Psalm 23, where green pastures stretch beneath peaceful skies.

He gave me Psalm 40.

A chapter about the waiting. About the pit. About the God who hears a cry that the world has mistaken for silence.

And perhaps that was the lesson.

That even when heaven seems quiet, I am not required to call myself forgotten.

That a delay is not a verdict. That an unanswered prayer is not proof of an unloved daughter. That my present circumstances have no authority to name my entire future.

For David did not sing because the pit was beautiful.

He sang because the pit was not where his story ended.

And I am learning that faith is not always a mountain-moving declaration. Sometimes, it is a trembling, "Lord, help me make it through today."

Sometimes, faith is getting out of bed when yesterday has left you exhausted. It is opening your Bible when your mind is crowded with questions. It is choosing to pray when you have run out of eloquent words and all you have left is, "Father, please."

Sometimes, faith is admitting that you are not okay without believing that you are beyond repair.

Oh, how I wish I could tell you that I have already arrived.

That my finances have found their freedom, that my body has found its healing, that my heart has found its rest, that every uncertainty has surrendered to the beauty of a settled life.

But I am still here, somewhere between the promise and its fulfilment, somewhere between the woman I have been and the woman I am becoming.

Still praying. Still learning. Still carrying dreams that the present has not yet made room for.

And if you ask me what I have learnt from the God who gave me this chapter, I will tell you this:

He does not ask me to call the pit a palace. He does not ask me to decorate my pain and pretend that it is peace.

He allows me to cry. He allows me to ask why. He allows me to arrive before Him without the strength to explain myself.

Perhaps the miracle begins there— not when I finally find the words, but when I discover that I can come to Him without them.

And so, I sing.

I sing for the woman I was before life taught her to worry. I sing for the dreams I have carried through seasons that gave me little reason to believe they would ever come true.

I sing for the prayers I whispered when nobody knew I was struggling. For the tears I wiped away before answering another person's call. For the mornings I showed up with a heart that desperately needed somewhere safe to fall apart.

I sing because I am still here.

Not untouched by sorrow, not immune to disappointment, not entirely certain how the next chapter will unfold.

But here.

And perhaps that is enough for this particular verse.

For the same God who meets me in the waiting is not confined to the waiting. The same hands that hold me through the night are not powerless to lead me into morning.

I may not know when the stone will roll away. I may not know which door will open first. I may not know how the pieces of my life will find their way into something beautiful.

But I refuse to mistake this silence for the absence of a future.

I refuse to believe that because this season is difficult, my entire life must remain so.

There is still a song in me that sorrow has not swallowed. There is still a prayer in me that disappointment has not silenced. There is still a woman in me who deserves to see the beauty she has spent so many years believing in.

And when the time comes, when my feet find firmer ground, when the things I have prayed for begin to take shape beneath my hands, I will remember this season.

Not because I enjoyed the pain, but because I survived the waiting.

I will remember the days when all I could offer God was a sigh, and how even then, I kept turning towards Him.

I will remember that before the testimony, there was a tear.

Before the new song, there was a silence.

Before the standing, there was a pit.

And before the world could see anything worth celebrating, there was a woman who kept believing that her story was not finished.

So, let them ask me one day how I found the courage to sing.

Let them ask me how I kept the faith when life refused to follow my plans.

I will tell them that I did not always sing beautifully.

Sometimes, my song was a question. Sometimes, it was a cry. Sometimes, it was simply the decision to try again tomorrow.

But He gave me a chapter to sing, and I sang.

I sang when my hands were empty. I sang when my heart was heavy. I sang when the future looked nothing like the life I had prayed for.

And if He gives me another chapter, I will sing that, too.

For I am learning that I do not have to see the whole story to trust the Author.

I do not have to understand the waiting to believe that waiting is not all there is.

And I do not have to be standing on the mountaintop to know that God can meet me in the valley.

Today, I am still waiting.

But I am no longer willing to let the waiting convince me that I have been forgotten.

He gave me a chapter to sing, and I sang.

Not because everything was well, but because, even here, my hope had not yet said its final word.