The Nursery That Waited

In 2019, Marcus and Delia Thompson of Raleigh, North Carolina, finished painting the nursery soft yellow on a Saturday afternoon. Their adoption caseworker had told them it could be weeks or months — there was no way to know when the call would come. So they lived ready. The car seat stayed buckled in the back of their Honda. A go-bag sat by the front door with tiny socks, formula, and a blanket Delia's grandmother had crocheted. Every evening, Marcus checked that his phone was charged and the ringer was on. Every morning, Delia confirmed the pediatrician could see them on short notice.

Their friends grew tired of the waiting before they did. "Just relax," people said. "Live your life." But Marcus and Delia understood something their friends did not — the call wasn't a maybe. It was a certainty with an unknown timetable. That changes everything about how you wait. You don't wait passively. You wait like someone whose whole life is about to change, because it is.

The call came at 2:14 on a Tuesday morning. They were in the car by 2:30.

Jesus tells His disciples in Mark 13 to watch — not with anxiety, but with that kind of purposeful, wide-awake readiness. The Son of Man is coming. The timing belongs to the Father alone. But the El Shaddai who holds that hour also holds us, and He asks one thing: be found faithful and alert when the moment arrives.