December 6th, 2025
“Our Lady Expectant” - Music by Wilhelmina Pariseau based on a Poem by Roseanne Sullivan
Season of Waiting
By Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend
“The Lord will give you the bread you need and the water for which you thirst.”
Isaiah 30:20
I’m not great with waiting. Seasons of waiting in the liturgical year, I can handle. The church looks pretty all dressed up in purple, and - most importantly - I know exactly what day the waiting will end. Seasons of waiting in my own life are less tolerable because God never lets me know how long they will last.
“Our Lady Expectant” by Roseanne Sullivan
I’ve heard it said that waiting purifies, but I suspect the manner in which you wait has something to do with this. I don’t wait in a purifying fashion. I wait impatiently. Obnoxiously. It is not a holy or inspiring sight to behold. God may be purifying me, but I do not make it easy for Him. While He is trying to hear the prayers of all the world, I clog up the line with a constant stream of “WhY aRe YoU dOiNg ThIs To Me? HoW mUcH lOnGeR?” St. Monica I am not.
Which is ridiculous, really, because as a playwright, most of my career is a season of waiting: Waiting to hear back from theaters about my submissions, waiting to find a home for that play I wrote that’s too long to be a short and too short to be a full length, waiting to figure out how to maneuver out of writer’s block with a piece.
As a friend once pointed out to me, time is also a medium. My plays never come all in a rush. They come in fits and starts. There are often long periods of time when, to outside observers, it looks like I’m not working on my play at all: When I’m going on walks to shake thoughts free, when I’m reading novels to fill my well, when I’m actively trying not to think too hard about plot problems so solutions can drip into my subconscious in the middle of the night, like magic. It takes time. It takes patience. And the waiting purifies the play taking shape. It always ends up being a much stronger piece because of that seemingly stagnant time than it would have been if I’d forced it to the finish line sooner. If that’s true for my writing, how much truer is it for my life? God has good things planned for us, but we need to be ready to receive them. “Wait,” He says. “Let me do a little more work in you first, for maximum results.”
The star in the East, which we look to during Advent, reminds us that even Jesus - even the Light of the World - didn’t show up and hit the ground running instantaneously. He spent thirty years waiting and preparing before putting God’s plans into action. If Jesus saw the benefit to seasons of waiting, then perhaps I should also try waiting well this Advent, embracing and finding joy in all of my current holding patterns, as God slowly purifies me and makes me ready for whatever is next. How does a terrible waiter become a model one? I’m not sure just yet. But time is a medium - one of God’s favorites. So I trust I’ll eventually figure it out.
Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend is a Chicago playwright temporarily living abroad in Singapore and President of the Board of Arts For All, a NYC-based nonprofit bringing accessible artistic opportunities to children who face barriers to exploring the arts.
Roseanne Sullivan writes about whatever catches her Catholic imagination. You can find out more about her here.