Waiting By the Window

a poem on chronic illness and weary surrender

“Gardin Motif,” L’udovít Pitthordt (1905-1910)

I’ve spent a lot of time waiting by the window this month. We’re entering the hottest season of the year in West Africa and it has caused frequent flare-ups with my chronic illness. The days feel heavy with a dryness that quenches the soul and soaks the life out of the spirit, sending it quietly into the abyss of apathy.

But there is beauty here. There is beauty because seasons are not forever - they are mere days in between. Soon all will be back to the lighthearted morning-song of dawn’s first rise and rain will come spilling from the sky’s recesses of life.

Until then, this is a poem I wrote on my phone’s notes app when I was too weak and lightheaded to stand from our couch - a conversation I had with my kind Father while waiting by the window.

---

Okay, God, I'm here,
Lying back on the couch. 
They're coming, I feel it - 
The days where I can't leave the house. 

They're the long days, the slow days, 
The days in-between. 
Days where half of my time is spent catching my breath
And I have to wisely reserve what little strength I have left. 
The days where I sit here and wonder, 
"What is wrong with Your world?"
And why You don't simply bandage it up like You could. 

They're the days where I ask You, 
"Why let it go on like this?"
Why send me across oceans, 
Then steal the breath from my lips?
Why call me to something for which I'm not equipped?
Why burden my soul, then steal energy's bliss?

Lord, I want to be fruitful and fill all the earth
With sounds of Your glory and build up Your church.
But I can barely eat breakfast;
I faint making my bed. 
Abba, how can I serve You, when I can't lift my head?

And I cry and I wonder and I wear my heart thin, 
Mourning all of the things that I can't do for Him. 
But He waits in the quiet and lifts up my chin, 
He says, 
"I'm in this place too - 
Though, you don't see it yet - 
At the end of the couch, helping you not forget.

I'm here in the survival, the hurting, the ache, 
In the catching your breath, the fainting, the pain. 
I'm in every moment and you miss me so much, 
Because you want to see me in the things you think earn my love. 
You want to build up my kingdom, 
You want to steady weak hearts, 
But you forget yours was weary like theirs all along.

And I know it's hard to grasp, but I want you to remember, 
For now, this is how I'm asking you to surrender."
So, I give Him my faith while I wait by the window.

- Waiting by the Window

---

---