What We're Waiting For
A resent letter. 🦃
Hey, friends—I’m in the middle of two book editing deadlines right now and attempting to wring some peace from the holiday season with my family. Thanks for understanding why I’m resending an older letter today, sans its old paywall, and remember that our archives are always ready for perusin’! See you next week with a fresh letter. Enjoy the potatoes. xo - C
Advent: a rush of purple candles and O Come O Come Emmanuel. Little girls in Lucia dresses, candy in shoes brought by St. Nicholas. We used to all argue about when to put the Christmas tree up; this year I saw less snarking and more sighs. All so busy, all so tired, falalala.
I love the liturgical year. I think it’s such a gift of (and to) the church. The rhythms and routines of a changing season to consistently remind us of who Jesus is. This year, more than any other in my life, I’ve been struck by that: the holy power of reminding.
Advent isn’t just a long list of Cyber Monday sales and a flurry of elementary school Christmas concerts. It’s purposefully designed as a season of waiting.
But what, exactly, are we waiting for?
I have a crush on George Bailey.1 It’s a Wonderful Life is my absolute favorite movie, narrowly beating out You’ve Got Mail and all other Nora Ephron works of genius. If you’ve never gotten the opportunity to see It’s a Wonderful Life, I beg you to grab some treats from the frozen section at Trader Joe’s, turn on the fireplace, and spend some time in Bedford Falls this season.
The film follows a young man named George throughout his life, culminating in a Christmas Eve where he plans to commit suicide when he realizes, in the words of the movie’s villain, he’s “worth more dead than alive”. His guardian angel appears on a quest to earn his wings (ok, I never claimed it was a theologically accurate movie) and shows him what the world will look like had he not been born. It ain’t pretty.
There’s a charming simplicity to the message: we all have an impact on the world, and we played a larger role than we’ll ever know. But I think the story actually goes much deeper; the movie presents layers that can be discussed for days on mutual aid, the role of a community member, the beauty and hardship of sacrifice, the meaning of marriage, and the right to housing. It also, from my view, talks about waiting.
George Bailey is a man who waits. (Warning—spoilers! But the movie’s been out since the 1940s so if you haven’t seen it by now that’s not really my problem!) He waits, as a kid, to have the chance to save up enough money working at the pharmacy to travel after graduation. After graduation, circumstances force him to take over his father’s business instead, and he waits on going to college. When his brother returns from college and is unable to take over the family business, he waits again for his honeymoon in order to travel. When the bank has a run and he has to spend his honeymoon funds on debts owed, he waits for…nothing. There, the waiting sort of halts, and the movie takes a more sorrowful turn. You realize that this is simply George’s life—the life he never wanted, that of a small-town businessman like his father.
But at the end of the movie, when George sees the impact his life has had on others, he stops waiting. He starts living. And while many would say it’s because he realized what a gift he’s been to others, I’d turn that on its head—I think what George Bailey realizes is what gifts he’s been given. I think he realizes, in a sense, what it means to wait, and what he’s waiting for.
If you are waiting, I see you.
Maybe you’re waiting for the baby you so desperately want.
Maybe you’re waiting for the vocation that seems out of reach.
Maybe you’re waiting on a job you’ve been searching for for months.
Maybe you’re waiting for your children or parents to return to church.
Maybe you’re waiting for a loved one to heal from an addiction or illness.
Maybe you’re waiting for a medical miracle.
Maybe you’re waiting for abortion to be unthinkable, for gun control laws to be stricter, for politicians who care about the dignity of the human person to be elected.
Read: The Waiting is the Cross by
How? How do we wake up and live our lives, brushing our teeth and making lunches and sending emails, with this unbearable weight of when pushing on our shoulders? When we’re living with one foot in some unimaginable future, believing firmly that then, the life God has promised us will arrive? We could drown in this grief.
Because here is a cold, hard truth: what we’re waiting for may never come.
The cancer may last until we die. Our loved one may die of a fentanyl pill and live the rest of their lives in despair.
I followed a girl on Instagram for a while who was desperate to conceive. She diligently tracked her temperature and ovulation; she overshared about her IVF procedures. She spent thousands and thousands on specialists, soliciting GoFundMe donations from her thousands of followers. She said prayers of thanksgiving in advance, so sure that she could will this into being the will of God. But she never conceived. She posted bible verses about God’s plans and promises. And God remembered Rachel. She slowly posted less and less, and is now, as far as I can tell, completely off social media. I’ve been thinking of her lately, this total internet stranger. I’ve been wondering about her faith.
George Bailey does not, in fact, become fabulously wealthy and travel the world. His dreams, as far as we see, never happen. But he’s instilled with a new sense of waiting at the end of the movie. Waiting: waiting for something not of this earth. And that is what we wait for during Advent, which the Catechism says has the goal of “ancient expectancy of the Messiah...by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior's first coming.”
For it’s when we stop waiting that despair sneaks in.
I recently sat with a good friend and cried, hard. His words to me were basically an old-school Gospel presentation, the kind I gave in FOCUS a thousand times. That one day, all of our sorrow will be gone, and we’ll be rejoicing. I really hope that’s true, I told him.
No, he said, shaking his head, I’m telling you things that I know are true.
We are waiting for the fulfillment of promises, and those promises—oh, it hurts me to say this—do not have to do with jobs or babies or physical healing.
When Job is being absolutely beaten by life, did you know he prays to die?
“Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter of soul, who long for death that does not come, and search for it like hidden treasure, who rejoice and greatly exult when they can find the grave?”
It makes sense. If we’re just waiting for some glorious coming of Jesus, the beauty of Heaven, the delight of the afterlife, can’t we just skip to the good part a la Instagram reels?
But we can’t. How does God respond to Job?
He tells him that Job wasn’t there when he created the world. He even gives a litany of creatures—dolphins, Job! Heard of those?! I made ‘em!
It doesn’t seem very seeker-sensitive, does it? It seems like God is just telling him to suck it up. But what God’s doing is revealing himself to Job. He’s telling the truth of who God is, and who Job is, inviting him to trust in him in a radically new way.
Not trust that he’ll give George Bailey a fortune. Not trust that he’ll renew Job’s livelihood. Not trust that he’ll give Instagram-girl a baby in her womb. Trust in who God is. Trust in the goodness of this hard, broken world, even when it does not seem good.
We wait, sisters, and we may be waiting a very, very, very long time. We may wait 40 years in Egypt. We may wait till the day we “find the grave”. But one day, the waiting will end. The tears will be wiped from our eyes and everything sad will become untrue. O Yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Recently, I learned something about redwood trees. I learned that you can not plant a solitary redwood. Their root systems are shallow. They grow over one another, giving each other nutrients, ensuring the survival of the species. A lone redwood can not survive.
This year, I was immensely blessed by the roots of those around me. If you are feeling lost in your waiting, I positively beg of you to reach out and find others whose roots can give you strength. Oh, our stupid desires to seem put-together and competent. We are all messes. Waiting is easier to do in a group. Dare I say: we were designed to wait in a group. We are meant to grasp hands and squish each other’s faces and hand each other cocktails or cappucinos. I am so glad to have you here, but as much as I hope these writings remind you who + whose you are, I know that it’s nothing compared to the help a good in-person spiritual director, therapist, bible study leader, pastor, sister, friend, or mentor can provide.
We are meant to wait well. Amen?
On My Nightstand
The Forger’s Spell by Edward Dolnick: Wow. Easily one of my favorite reads of the year. This story of a Dutch artist who forged Vermeer paintings to sell to Nazis reads like a crime thriller. If you love history, art, or both, you will devour this.
Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey: Can you tell I’m doing a little art research for a potential project? Ha. This is a novel of Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, who apparently hated each other. It’s fine! Not the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read but an interesting storyline for sure.
Men Buying Babies: The Great Surrogacy Con: A compelling read on how poor women are being exploited during this, the age of surrogacy. “It is an ethical abomination to deliberately bring a child into the world in order to separate it from its mother at birth. The last thing the government should do is make it even easier to do so by treating it like any other business.”
In case you missed these Letters:
This Friday, my pilgrimage will be on sale!
In October 2025, I’m leading a pilgrimage to the south of France: the Way of Mary Magdalene. We’ll be traveling to Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, where the remains of St. Mary Magdalene are, as well as other sites associated with women in the gospels. We’re also sipping wine, visiting Cannes, wandering Aix-en-Provence, and so much more. This isn’t a vacation, mission trip, or retreat, but a true pilgrimage, where we’ll journey together and grow in our faith. Sign up on Black Friday and receive 250 off. We still have a few spots left. ❤️
My mom and I argue every year over whether Jimmy Stewart is a hottie. Feel free to voice your opinions in the comments but the only acceptable answer here is “yes”.
This made me cry, but in a way that's good for my heart. I read this letter originally last Advent, and between last Advent and now my husband and I decided to stop trying to conceive. Like Instagram Girl, our baby will likely never come. So now we turn our waiting to "await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ"
Just me here wiping the tears away from my eyes to tell you that you are correct, Jimmy Stewart is a hottie.
(And serious as that hotness issue is, I'm printing this out to hold onto. I've lately been thinking about the definition of "hope," what that looks like in faith... especially when measurable results are not a thing). But the redwoods! My heart!