Thankful for the Waiting Room
When nothing moved, God was moving in me
Dear Waiting Season,
You were the hardest room I ever sat in.
No noise. No movement. No clear signs that anything was changing.
I prayed and felt like Heaven was quiet.
I fasted and felt like breakthrough ignored me.
I smiled while carrying silence in my spirit.
Every day felt like standing at a door that wouldn’t open, holding keys that no longer fit.
But now that I look back, I see you differently.
You weren’t the punishment I thought you were—you were the pause that prepared me.
You were the sacred stillness where God tore down what impatience built.
You were mercy in disguise.
In that stillness, I learned that God’s “not yet” isn’t “no.”
It’s a divine delay that saves me from premature arrivals.
It’s the protection I didn’t know I needed.
It’s the unseen construction site where God rebuilds foundations too fragile to carry my future.
You stripped me of my need to control outcomes.
You taught me that silence doesn’t mean abandonment—it means attention.
Heaven was watching, even when it wasn’t talking.
Every unanswered prayer was a seed being buried, not denied.
And just because I couldn’t see movement didn’t mean growth wasn’t happening.
Waiting revealed the motives of my heart.
Was I worshiping God or worshiping results?
Was I pursuing promises or Presence?
Was I still grateful when gratitude didn’t get me what I wanted?
You humbled me.
You made me face my tendency to rush, to fix, to perform.
You taught me to rest in rhythms I couldn’t predict.
To trust that even delays are divine choreography.
In the waiting, I stopped demanding explanations and started discovering evidence—
evidence of peace in the middle of uncertainty,
evidence of strength rising quietly under pressure,
evidence of God’s hand rearranging things I thought were stuck.
You made me redefine what progress looks like.
It wasn’t doors opening; it was my heart softening.
It wasn’t people showing up; it was God showing off—in small, quiet ways.
It was in the breath between “amen” and “it is so” that my faith matured.
And I get it now—movement without maturity is meaningless.
The waiting was never wasted time; it was womb time.
I was being formed in the dark for what light couldn’t handle yet.
So, Waiting Season, I thank you.
Thank you for slowing me down until I could hear Heaven’s rhythm again.
Thank you for teaching me to stop performing patience and start living it.
Thank you for showing me that stillness can be strategy.
Because when nothing moved around me,
God was moving in me—
rebuilding confidence, re-establishing boundaries, re-igniting belief.
And when the time was right, the doors I begged for didn’t just open—they recognized me.
I came out of the waiting room different.
Less hurried. More whole.
More focused on peace than on proof.
More surrendered than strategic.
So, yes—I’m thankful for the waiting room.
Because now, I walk into answered prayers with character that can carry them.
And if I ever find myself here again,
I’ll sit differently this time—
not as a woman waiting to be released,
but as one being refined for her next reveal.
💖 Prayer
Father, thank You for divine delays that protect destiny.
Thank You for quiet rooms that teach me to hear Your heartbeat.
When impatience tries to take over, remind me that waiting is where You shape warriors.
I surrender my timeline to Your wisdom.
Let the pause produce peace in me.
💭 Journal Prompt
What has waiting revealed about your faith, your focus, and your fears?
Write one paragraph beginning with,
“While I waited, God was…”
Then reread it out loud—slowly.
Feel gratitude rise for what you can’t yet see but already trust.
🦋 Unmute. Heal. Amplify.
Dr. Apostle Anita McDaniel