“Waiting, as we see it in the people on the first pages of the Gospel, is waiting with a sense of a promise already begun in us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from ‘Zechariah… your wife Elizabeth is to bear you a son.’ To ‘Mary… Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son.’ (Luke 1. 13, 31) People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow. This is very important. We can only really wait if what we are waiting for is from something to something more.”
–Henri Nouwen, A Spirituality of Waiting, p. 2
