The Waiting Period: Attitudes That Would Keep You Smiling Till You Overcome

The waiting period is that season of your life when what you want isn’t coming through. It can be referred to as our night, trial, learning and building period. In life, everyone passes through a waiting period. For example; that moment after you have sent applications for a job and you’re waiting for an offer call, that moment after series of heartbreak, you are just hoping to meet the love of your life or that moment when your teenage child decides to leave home and join some bad friends, and you are all over the streets searching and waiting for him to return home.

Waiting periods are delicate and tough periods. You need to learn how to handle this period to avoid making mistakes. Since waiting periods are inevitable, what do you need to get through it? Patience! Enough patience.

Patience is a quality that helps you to be tolerant of the faults and failures of others. Patience is what you need when you are expecting a change in your life or that of your loved ones. You’ll need patience in handling your spouse and children. When your heart desires are not met, you’ll need patience to get through that period.

When your husband starts an affair and the other woman keeps calling for his love and it seems like you are in a competition, you would need patience to get through this trial phase. When you fail again and again, you will need patient to push through to success. Complaining and murmuring doesn’t always solve anything. No! No! When you complain and worry, you end up sinking into depression and nothing gets solved.

One of the patient women I have encountered is a 42 years old lady named Jessy. She had series of failed relationships so while her siblings and friends were getting married, she felt left out. She later got married to Lindsey when she was 35 years old.

Prior to their wedding, Lindsey had a nice job in a multinational company, and a nice house too. The future looked nice not until everything suddenly changed. After their wedding, she found out she was pregnant and when she told her husband, his joy knew no bounds.

Three months into her pregnancy, her husband had a gas explosion accident at his work place. It was a terrible experience as most parts of his body got burnt. Lindsey was hospitalized for two months. Jessy who was pregnant was so involved in catering for her husband while he was staying in the hospital. Unfortunately, she had a miscarriage and it was a painful experience.

After Lindsey was discharged from the hospital, he needed to rest for a while at home before resuming at work. Unfortunately, while he was still recovering he got a sack letter from his office. They needed to replace him.  That was the beginning of hardship besides they had used most of their savings for his treatment.

She had to take up three different jobs and was working round the clock. Two years after, everything seemed settled so she wanted to get pregnant again but no baby was coming forth. When she went for medical checkup she was told that everything was okay but she needed to get pregnant since menopause was already at the corner.

The thought of menopause got her worried. She was gradually sinking into depression when after a year the pregnancy strip was still showing negative.

To add to her injury, after Lindsey recovered and got another job, he wasn’t supporting her financially. He left the home bills payment and feeding expenses to her. He had lied that he wasn’t earning enough money.  But do you know what he was doing with the money he earned? He was having an affair at his workplace.

When she found out, she felt like her world was crashing down. After all the sacrifices she had made for him, he still dared to cheat on her? It was at this point that she visited me and shared her story with me. She couldn’t bear the pains all alone so she needed solutions. If possible, quick solutions.

What was I supposed to tell her? Be strong, forgive, let go of the bitterness, keep praying, be patient and one day a change will come. Five months after our encounter, she called to tell me that her husband’s affair had ended and he had actually changed back to the darling she had married years back. The greatest news was when she told me she was pregnant. I rejoiced with her.

Benefits of patience:

Indeed, patience makes it possible to manage the moments of waiting in serenity. It also allows for perseverance and consistency when working on a project. But that’s not all; patience helps you to learn about your strengths and opens doors for you.

What challenges are you going through right now? What’s giving you sleepless nights? It could be your spouse, children, job, finance, health, etc. There is no problem without a solution and the night won’t last forever, there must always be a dawn.

In every situation you find yourself, instead of worrying, you should look out for the positive side and hold on to it.  Patience has never failed in the past so if you believe, you would have a testimony to share when your trial period is over.