Living in the And
I think I’ve been waiting for my life to start again. Waiting for my body to feel better, for the pain to ease, for things to go back to the way they were—or at least to something recognizable. I’ve told myself that once I’m healed, once this chapter is over, then I’ll fully live again. But lately I’ve started to wonder what it would mean to stop waiting. To stop treating this season as a holding pattern or a detour. To consider the possibility that this—right here, right now—is still my life, and it’s still worthy of presence, faith, and joy, even if it doesn’t look the way I hoped it would.
I believe in a God of miracles. I believe He can heal me completely, in an instant, if He chooses to. But I’ve also come to believe—through scripture, prayer, and a lot of wrestling—that just because He can doesn’t mean He will, at least not on my timeline. One moment that has stayed with me comes from The Chosen, when the character of Little James asks Jesus why he hasn’t been healed. Jesus tells him it isn’t because of a lack of faith, but because He trusts him with something harder: to show strength through weakness, to testify of God’s power not through physical healing, but through faithful endurance. While others would have stories of miracles, Little James would have a story of praising God in the midst of suffering. And Jesus assures him that he will be healed—eventually—saying, “It’s only a matter of time.”
That moment has stayed with me over the years. And lately, I’ve found myself returning to it—not as a sudden realization, but as a quiet reminder. It’s helped me see again that not being healed right away doesn’t mean God isn’t good, or that faith has failed. It may simply mean I’m being asked a different question: Is my faith strong enough to endure without the miracle? Do I trust God even if this is the body I live in for now?
So I’ve been challenging myself to stop waiting for the miracle before I live like I believe. To stop postponing joy, faith, and gratitude until my circumstances improve. That transactional if/then version of faith—if I’m healed, then I’ll trust; if this gets better, then I’ll be grateful—no longer serves me. Letting go of that doesn’t mean my pain has disappeared. It hasn’t. My body still hurts. Some days are still heavy. This isn’t minimizing any of that. It’s simply a decision to stop bargaining and start belonging. If this pain is part of my story right now—if this is the body I’m living in—then I still choose to follow Christ. I still believe my life has meaning. I still trust that God is at work, even here. Not after this season passes, but in it. This is where I am, and this is where I’m choosing to meet God.
I’m learning to live in the and, not the either/or. I can be in real, persistent pain and still be deeply blessed. I can feel exhausted, discouraged, and limited and still love my life. I can grieve what I’ve lost and be grateful for what remains. For a long time, I felt pressure to choose—to either acknowledge how hard this is or prove how strong my faith is. But that false choice has only made things heavier. The truth is, faith doesn’t require me to pretend I’m okay, and pain doesn’t mean I’m failing spiritually. Both can exist at the same time. And learning to hold that tension—without rushing to fix it or explain it away—has been unexpectedly freeing.
Living in the and doesn’t look dramatic. Most days, it looks small and ordinary. It looks like getting out of bed even when my back is already screaming. It looks like taking the medication, saying the prayer, doing the work that’s in front of me, and giving myself permission to rest when my body asks for relief instead of discipline. It looks like thanking God at the end of the day—not because everything went well, but because I was carried through it. Some days I do this gracefully. Other days I don’t. But staying present, even imperfectly, feels truer than either numbing out or pretending I’m stronger than I am.
I don’t know what healing will look like for me, or when it will come. I don’t know how this chapter ends. But I’m learning that faith doesn’t require certainty—it requires presence. And right now, presence looks like choosing belief without guarantees, gratitude without relief, and hope without a timeline. If this is the road I’m walking for a while, I won’t walk it waiting for my life to begin again. I’ll live it here. I’ll love here. I’ll trust God here. Not because it’s easy or inspiring, but because He’s already here with me—and that, I’m discovering, is enough to keep going.
