God's Waiting Room | Lisânias Moura

God’s Waiting Room “A waiting room can become one of the loneliest places in the world, even though we are surrounded by many people in them. It could be a hospital waiting room, one at a company where we went for a job interview, or even at a restaurant. No matter the type, the fact is that being in a waiting room makes us uncomfortable, since waiting is not pleasant. The time we spend in a waiting room can be short or long, sad or happy, full of anxiety or serene… be that as it may, we do not always experience virtues like patience, peace, wisdom, and trust while we are forced to wait for something we long for. The question then arises: how do you survive in a waiting room?” Pedro and Dora saw their son admitted to a hospital after suffering a severe seizure. João Carlos created an app with two colleagues, but was betrayed by a supposedly Christian investor who seized his idea. Joás and Celina waited more than five years to get married, kept themselves sexually for each other, and after three years of marriage, he left her to pursue a same-sex relationship. Joubert suffered a car accident while heading to the theological seminary, where he would study to dedicate himself to preaching the gospel in the mission field. Pedro, Dora, João Carlos, Joás, Celina, and Joubert experienced something in common: in all these circumstances, they were encouraged to pray and heard things from various friends like: God has a wonderful plan for your life; Do not be discouraged, just pray and trust, for God is sovereign and God writes straight with crooked lines. How can we understand that the Lord often leaves us in a long wait, in a cold, lonely room where it seems time has stood still? Is God really sovereign and in control of all events? Is God really good? The accounts I mention in this book are real, facts I heard in the pastoral office, although the names have been changed. But I don’t know God’s waiting room only from hearsay. I have already experienced the chills it often causes, such as when, in the fifth month of my wife Teca’s pregnancy with our second child, the gynecologist warned us that our baby would likely die during labor. Worse: in the doctor’s words, both could die during the procedure. Initially, it was five months in a somber waiting room, facing something for which we were not prepared.” The question is: how to survive in the waiting room when the news is not good at all? How to wait for an answer from God when we pray and it feels like we are talking to someone deaf? Or how to live in a waiting room when we hear all the time: Pray and everything will be alright… but the right thing never happens? Where is God in the midst of all this? While we are in the waiting room, it seems the clock does not work, the door does not open, and the people around us do not understand our pain. Many