Is My Pet Waiting for Me? On Time, Waiting, and Who Goes First
“I keep picturing them by the door, waiting for me to come home. And I can’t get there yet. That is the part that breaks me.”
The fear underneath is not really about a door. It is about time — theirs and ours, and whether anyone is keeping track.
1. God's clock does not run like ours
2 Peter 3:8
"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
Peter says this to people who were tired of waiting. His answer is not “wait faster.” It is: time itself does not sit on God the way it sits on you.
So the picture of them standing at a door, watching the clock, growing anxious — that picture is built from our side of time, not theirs. We are the ones who count the days. We are the ones for whom a year is long.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
"He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."
That last line explains a lot of your pain. God put eternity in the human heart — a sense of forever that we cannot switch off. That is why a finite wait feels unbearable, and why “never again” is a word our hearts refuse to accept. The ache is not a malfunction. It is a signal that we were made for something longer than this life.
2. Look at which direction the waiting actually runs
2 Samuel 12:23
"But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
Read the last sentence again: I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. David puts the movement in one direction only, and it is the living who move.
That is a quiet, freeing thing to notice. If the direction is “we go to them,” then they are not stranded at a door, checking for your arrival. The ones still counting the days are us. Grief is what waiting looks like from this side.
And notice how David was able to eat and live afterwards. He did not stop loving the child. He stopped carrying the child’s timetable.
3. There is a morning when no one waits anymore
Revelation 21:4
"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
No more death means no more waiting rooms. No more years in which someone is missing. The last chapter is not a long hallway where they wait and you walk.
Until then, your waiting is not empty time. It is time in which love is still being spent: on them in memory, on the people in front of you, on the world God is still making new.
Three thoughts for the nights it feels unbearable
They are not watching a clock
Our years and God’s day are not measured the same way. The anxiety about time is ours to carry, not theirs to suffer.
The direction runs toward them
“I shall go to him.” Not stranded — awaited. That is a different sentence, and it is kinder than the one you have been repeating.
Let waiting become preparing
Live the way you would want to arrive: keep loving, keep being honest, keep saying their name. Waiting that prepares is not wasted time.
“Father, I have been afraid that they are waiting and I am late.
Thank You that time is in Your hands and not in mine.
Let me live ready rather than anxious — and when that morning comes, let me find them there. Amen.”
A prayer you can try
“Lord, You are the one for whom a thousand years is a day. Hold them in Your kind of time. And hold me in mine — one day at a time, until the day when none of us waits anymore. Amen.”
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Keep the waiting somewhere kind.
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Download on the App StoreThese readings offer faith reflection and emotional companionship; they are not medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice. If grief keeps you from functioning for a long period, please reach out to a licensed professional or a local support line. Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (KJV).
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