“Waiting is not easy.” That’s what Gerald the Elephant says when he has to wait all day to see the surprise his friend has for him. As the day goes on and it starts to get dark, Gerald begins to think that he waited all day for nothing. He thought he would see something special, but it seems too late now for anything good to happen. His friend keeps telling him that the wait will be worth it, but when you’re in the waiting, it rarely feels that way.

I can relate to Gerald, and maybe you can too. Waiting isn’t fun, especially when we don’t know when the wait will be over. It’s like that saying, “It seems impossible until it is done.” For couples waiting to get pregnant, for single people waiting to be married, for those who are sick waiting on healing or recovery, or those waiting for a job or financial provision. More than “not easy,” waiting can be painful. Especially if we don’t have hope, or if we worry that the hope we do have will be disappointed.

The well known verse from Isaiah 40 says, “They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (In other translations, the word “wait” is translated as “hope” or “trust.”)

Before this verse in Isaiah, there is a question: “Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God’?” Can you relate to that? At times, it can feel like God doesn’t want the best for you or that he isn’t noticing your pain. But the verses following that question remind us of what’s true: “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary. And to him who lacks might He increases power.”

God sees us. He understands our situation. He notices our weakness. And he supplies what we lack. When we remember who He is, we can wait without worrying. Even when we grow weary, he doesn’t. We can confidently place our hope in the good God who sees us and understands us and has not left us on our own.

When we look up from our pain and look to God, we see that he’s near and realize that he always was. Nothing happens without his knowledge. We are not alone. In our weakness and pain, we have the opportunity to rest in his strength and his comfort. We get to learn that we were never in control in the first place; we were always dependent on him. Our God is completely holy and good. He will come through. He will work all things together for our good. He will continue to redeem and restore and breathe life into the places that feel hopeless, broken and dead.

At the end of the story about waiting, Gerald finally sees the surprise that his friend wanted to show him. After waiting all day long, watching the night come and the darkness seem to take over, he’s finally able to see what they were waiting for: a breathtaking display of stars in the night sky.

Gerald didn’t know what he was waiting for. He didn’t know if it would be worth it. Until he saw it, he doubted that the surprise would be as good as what his friend had promised.

Like Gerald, we may get frustrated with the timeline. We get weary in the waiting. But, when we endure through the painful seasons that seem to stretch on and on, in the end, we’ll see that what we went through was worth it, and that God had a plan that was far and beyond anything we could have imagined for ourselves. We’ll see that the journey of the waiting was the process God used to grow our roots down deeper into His love, and that the comfort he showed us is now a fresh spring of compassion and hope that we can bring to others facing similar situations. We’ll see that it really is true that God is close to the brokenhearted and rescues those whose spirits are crushed. It really is true that he gives us joy for mourning and beauty for ashes. It really is true that God is faithful and worth waiting on.