WAIT AND HOPE

Chris and me 1965

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, a time when we celebrate a fifth-century British monk who brought Christianity to Ireland. However, his story did not begin with strength and success—it began with suffering. At just sixteen, Saint Patrick was captured in Britain and taken to Ireland as a slave, where he lived for six long years.

During that difficult season, something remarkable happened. In isolation and hardship, he drew close to God—talking to Him, trusting Him, and learning to wait. Day after day, he held on in faith until, at last, an opportunity to escape came.

After returning home, Patrick did not simply move on with his life. Instead, he became a monk. Then, in time, he had a dream—one that called him back to the very place of his suffering. In obedience to that call, he returned to Ireland, this time not as a captive, but as a messenger of hope, ultimately helping bring Christianity to the nation.

In a different way, I see how God works through seasons of waiting in my own life as well.

War, for example, shaped much of Chris’s life and mine. We were born during World War II, and later, during the Cold War, hiding under our school desks became a normal part of childhood. Then, as young adults, we were married during the Vietnam War. At that time, Chris was in the Army Reserve and could have been sent away at any moment.

So we waited. We worked, paid our bills and taxes, and lived with the quiet uncertainty of not knowing what would come next. Fortunately, he was never activated, but the waiting itself was real.

Even today, life can feel like a holding pattern—waiting for the next shoe to drop. At any moment, circumstances can change: war, illness, financial struggles, or difficult relationships can enter without warning.

Looking back, I realize my life, like Patrick’s, has been marked by waiting. I waited to grow up. I waited to have a boyfriend. I waited to get married. When we finally became engaged, it felt like stepping off a cliff into the unknown.

Yet in that moment of uncertainty, God gave me comfort through a poem by Ruth Bell Graham:

Dear God, I prayed, all unafraid
(as we’re inclined to do),
I do not need a handsome man
but let him be like You;
I do not need one big and strong
nor yet so very tall,
nor need he be some genius,
or wealthy, Lord, at all;
but let his head be high, dear God,
and let his eye be clear,
his shoulders straight, whate’er his state,
whate’re his earthly sphere;
and let his face have character,
a ruggedness of soul,
and let his whole life show, dear God,
a singleness of goal;
then when he comes
(as he will come)
with quiet eyes aglow,
I’ll understand that he’s the man
I prayed for long ago.

— Ruth Bell Graham

And so, as I reflect on both Patrick’s life and my own, I see a common thread: waiting is not wasted time. Rather, it is often where God does His deepest work. In the waiting, our faith is shaped, our trust is strengthened, and our hearts are prepared for what comes next.

Perhaps the real lesson of St. Patrick’s story—and of our own—is this: the very seasons we would never choose may be the ones God uses most powerfully. And in the waiting, He is never absent—He is quietly at work, leading us, just as He always has, toward His purpose.