Time moves differently when you’re waiting. Scientists have proven that uncertainty makes minutes feel like hours, days feel like months. Your brain literally can’t process time normally when it doesn’t know when something will end.
Every parent knows this secret: when you tell a child “five more minutes,” they can handle it. But say “we’ll leave soon,” and they fall apart.
Humans crave endpoints. We can endure almost anything if we know when it stops.
I’ve always wondered why the period between Shiva Assar B’Tammuz and Tisha B’Av doesn’t have an official name. We don’t call it “The weeks of Mourning” or “The Time of Sadness.” We just say “the three weeks,” “the nine days.” Just numbers. Counting down.
The reason for this, I believe, is that the lesson is the number. Numbers are finite. Numbers have endings. When you have a number, you can count down. You can cross off days on your calendar. You know exactly how much time you have left.
If your doctor said, “You’ll be on crutches for exactly six weeks,” you could handle it. Knowing exactly when you could walk normally again will make the recovery easier. But if they say, “We’ll see how you heal – some people recover quickly, others take much longer,” suddenly every day becomes unbearable.
Same if you lost your job. If someone guaranteed you’d be unemployed for exactly four months, you could budget, plan, and make it work. But not knowing when you’ll find work again? That makes every day feel endless.
Or if someone could promise you, “You will be heartbroken for exactly six months, then you’ll meet someone better,” you’d circle the date and count down. But when you’re lying awake at 2 AM with no idea if you’ll ever feel whole again? Every day feels like you’re drowning.
We call it “the Nine Days.” Nine – a number you can count, track, and cross off your calendar. The difficulty has an expiration date stamped right on it.
But your personal waiting doesn’t come with numbers. And that makes it all the more challenging.
Think about the last time you were stuck in a doctor’s waiting room. You watch person after person get called ahead of you. The woman who came in twenty minutes after you just walked into the doctor’s office. The guy who didn’t even have an appointment somehow got seen first.
You think, “I’ve been here forever. This isn’t fair. What if they never call my name? What if they forgot about me?”
That’s exactly what it feels like in the waiting room of your own life, except there’s no countdown clock on the wall telling you how much longer.
The not-knowing is torture. The question marks are so heavy.
But the ‘Three weeks’ and ‘Nine Days’ teach us a profound lesson: even when you can’t see the end, there is one. Right now, your waiting period is _________ long. That blank space feels infinite, but it’s not. One day, you’ll look back and be able to fill it in.
“I was single for three years, but then I got the call that changed everything.”
“We tried for eighteen months, but then she was born healthy and perfect.”
“I was out of work for seven months, but then I walked into an interview and knew my waiting was over.”
The number exists. Hashem already knows what it is. You just can’t see it from where you’re sitting.
I wrote the following poem during a time in my own life that I was waiting for a personal Yeshua, when I wished so desperately to know how much longer:
Wait
Please, I begged.
Please.
I can’t anymore.
It’s been so long.
“Wait.”
I pressed my face into my hands and let the tears come
Hot
Angry
desperate tears that tasted like
salt and broken dreams.
But I’ve been good, I cried.
I’ve done everything right.
Haven’t I waited enough?
“Wait.”
The same gentle reply, unchanged by my pleading.
Wait.
Always the same response.
Wait.
Days turned to weeks,
weeks folded into months,
and then years.
I asked again, my voice hoarse now,
worn thin from calling out into what felt like emptiness.
Why won’t You answer me?
Why won’t You see how much this matters,
how much I need this,
how much it would change everything?
“Wait.”
I stopped asking then.
Stopped believing.
Carried my want like a stone in the center of my chest,
heavy
cold
sharp around the edges.
But He waited for me even when I stopped waiting for Him.
And then like sunrise after the longest night it came.
Not what I had asked for.
Something better.
Something that fit perfectly into the space that waiting
had carved out inside me.
I understood then
The wait had been a gift.
Each “no” had been protection.
Each delay had been preparation.
Each tear had watered the ground where this blessing would grow.
I’m sorry, I whispered.
I’m sorry I doubted.
I’m sorry I thought You weren’t listening.
And in the quiet that followed,
I felt Him smiling,
felt His love washing over me.
I looked up and said, Thank You, Hashem, for the wait.
We think we’re in the waiting room, but we’re actually in the living room.
We’re exactly where we need to be.
Your number is already written, even if you can’t read it yet. Hashem already knows the exact moment when everything changes for you. The day when the call comes, when you meet bashert, when the positive test results arrive, when the breakthrough happens.
No matter what you are waiting for right now – your shidduch, children, healing, success, peace – I need you to know something: very soon you will be able to fill in that blank. “I waited ____ days, months, years for ____.”
That day already exists on His calendar.
In your darkest moments, when hope feels naive and the silence feels endless, hold onto the words Nachamu, Nachamu Ami.
Be comforted. Hashem promises us that better days are coming.
Comfort isn’t something you feel once and you’re done. It comes in waves, returning again and again when you need it most.
If you found the strength yesterday, you can find it again today.
If you felt hopeful yesterday, you can feel hopeful again today.
If you believed yesterday, you can believe again today.
When one burst of optimism fades, pause and reboot.
Your name is written in His book. Your number is already determined. And when your waiting is over-when you finally understand why it took exactly as long as it did-you’ll know it couldn’t have happened any other way.
