Sometimes, the hardest words to hear are “not yet.”
There is something about waiting for something your heart deeply desires that can leave you feeling weary. It’s an ache that settles deep in your bones, a longing that lingers in the quiet moments and follows you into the ordinary rhythms of life. It’s the longing for a pregnancy you’ve prayed for, healing you desperately need, a marriage you hope for, or a door you’ve been waiting to open. Whatever your not yet looks like, you know the weight of wanting something that hasn’t come to be.
And if we’re honest, waiting can be hard. It can be difficult to celebrate others when you’re still longing for your own breakthrough. It can be hard to hold on to hope when the days turn into months and the months turn into years. Sometimes, the ache of what is missing becomes so loud that it drowns out the beauty of what is already here.
Before we know it, we’ve become so focused on the life we hope to have that we’ve forgotten to be present in the life we’re living.
So, what does it look like to live in the not yet? How do we honor the ache of our longing without allowing it to rob us of the beauty of today? And is it possible to hold space for what we hope will come while still finding joy in what is?
I believe it is.
Perhaps living in the not yet begins with recognizing that our waiting does not have to mean our living is on pause. We can acknowledge the ache, make room for the disappointment, and still allow ourselves to experience the sweetness of the present. After all, the breath in our lungs reminds us that our story is still unfolding. And while we may not know when our not yet will become finally, we can choose to remain open to the hope that one day, the place where we once felt an ache may become a place of celebration.
25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” (Mark 5:25-31 NIV11)
Can you, for a moment, imagine the ache of not yet?
Imagine this beautiful woman, waiting for healing while living in isolation. For twelve long years, she suffered from an issue of bleeding. Twelve years of pain. Twelve years of waiting. Twelve years of wondering if the next day would be any different from the last.
I can only imagine the prayers she prayed, the desperation she felt, the fear she carried, and the loneliness that must have settled into the deepest places of her heart. I wonder how many times she had to encourage herself in the face of another not yet. How many times did she have to gather the little strength she had left and convince herself to keep going? How many times did she have to believe that healing was still possible when her circumstances gave her little reason to hope?
She had to keep fighting. She had to keep believing that one day, her story would be different. One day, her body would be whole again. One day, she would no longer have to live under the weight of an affliction she could not control.
And let’s not forget that her suffering extended far beyond her physical condition. According to the purity laws of her time, her ongoing bleeding rendered her ritually unclean, affecting her participation in communal and religious life. Her condition carried social and relational consequences, too. She wasn’t simply a woman fighting a physical battle; she was a woman navigating the loneliness of being set apart because of something she could not control.
Can you imagine what that does to a person over time? The weight of suffering is heavy enough, but what happens when suffering is accompanied by isolation? What happens when the thing you desperately want healed becomes the very thing that separates you from others?
And somewhere in those twelve years, I wonder how many times she cried out to God for healing, only to wake up the next morning and find that nothing had changed. How many times did she wonder when her moment would come? How many times did she wrestle with the silence between her prayer and her breakthrough?
Perhaps the words not yet began to describe the space between what she believed God could do and what she was actually experiencing.
How do you keep going after all those moments of not yet?
How do you keep believing when the answer hasn’t come? How do you hold on to hope when disappointment keeps knocking at your door? How do you find the strength to rise again when you have already spent so much of yourself trying to survive?
I believe there was something in her that refused to let hope die. Somewhere in the middle of all those years, perhaps she held on to the possibility that her story wasn’t over. Perhaps she didn’t know when her moment would come, but she dared to believe that healing was still possible.
And then, one day, Jesus came near.
Mark 5:27–28 tells us that when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment, believing that if she could just touch His clothes, she would be made well.
Think about that moment.
After twelve years of suffering, she moved.
After twelve years of waiting, she reached.
After twelve years of living with a condition that had isolated her, she stepped into a crowd and reached for the One she believed could change everything.
She could have stayed where she was. She could have allowed the weight of all those years to convince her that nothing would ever change. She could have let the fear of another disappointment keep her from reaching.
But she didn’t.
Somewhere between her pain and her hope, she found the courage to move beyond not yet.
Her faith did not mean she had never been afraid. Her persistence did not mean she had never grown weary. And her reaching did not erase the twelve years she had already endured. But in that moment, she chose to reach for Jesus.
She fought for the possibility of something different. She reached for healing. She reached for restoration. She reached for the chance to experience life beyond the suffering she had known for so long.
And Jesus met her there.
What I love about this story is that Jesus did not reduce her to her condition. He did not leave her hidden in the crowd. He called her Daughter (Mark 5:34). Before the story ended, He acknowledged her faith, spoke peace over her, and affirmed that she had been made well.
She had spent years living with a condition that affected how she could participate in her community. But in her encounter with Jesus, she was seen. She was addressed with tenderness. She was no longer just the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. She was a daughter.
And perhaps that is part of what makes this story so beautiful: her healing was not only about the end of her bleeding. Her encounter with Jesus brought her suffering out of hiding and placed her before the One who saw her.
Maybe you know something about the ache of not yet.
Maybe you have prayed, waited, cried, believed, and prayed again. Maybe you have watched others receive the very thing you have been asking God for. Maybe you have wondered how to keep your faith alive when the evidence of your circumstances seems to tell a different story.
Maybe you are tired of being strong. Tired of encouraging yourself. Tired of trying to find the words to explain the weight you carry.
If that is where you are, I want you to know that the not yet does not have to mean never. And waiting does not mean that your pain is unseen or that your story has no value.
But I also want to remind you that faith is not a formula. We cannot promise that if we fight hard enough, pray long enough, or believe perfectly enough, healing will happen on our timeline. The woman’s story invites us to reach for Jesus, but it does not give us permission to shame ourselves or others when healing takes longer than we hoped.
Sometimes faith looks like reaching. Sometimes it looks like resting. Sometimes it looks like asking for help when you have nothing left to give. And sometimes, it looks like bringing God the honest ache of a heart that is struggling to understand why the answer has not come.
Wherever you find yourself in the waiting, you are allowed to be honest about how hard it is.
And perhaps, somewhere in the middle of your own not yet, you can find the courage to reach again—not because you have figured everything out, not because you are no longer afraid, but because your pain does not have to be the only voice speaking over your story.
Your not yet is a place in your story. It does not have to become the definition of who you are.
So, dear heart, if you are living somewhere in the not yet, may you find grace for the waiting, courage for the reaching, and peace for the days when you simply cannot understand the process.
And may you remember that even in the waiting, you are still worthy of tenderness, community, and care.
I’m so deeply grateful that you are here. My prayer is that you feel safe enough to take a seat, kick your shoes off and relax in the beauty of the light.
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