When it comes to waiting for a miracle to happen, it’s easy to get impatient. Every waiting moment becomes a burden of its own. Sometimes the uncertainty of what you’re waiting for begins to feel heavier than even the struggle you’re wanting to be delivered from.
In the summer of 2025, I was diagnosed with chronic sinusitis. It’s not a particularly painful illness, and I’d consider it more uncomfortable than anything else.
It started over the skies of Rome, as my family and I were just landing at the airport to continue our vacation through Europe. What usually happens while descending on a plane is that your ears will pop as they adjust to the air pressure. For whatever reason, my ears didn’t pop. Even after we’d landed, got off the plane, and entered the terminal, they stayed clogged.
18 months later, my ears are still clogged.
The best way to describe my present reality would be to imagine if someone stuffed tiny invisible cotton balls in your ears. I can still hear, but every sound just seems a little further away.
As soon as we got back to BC, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor who diagnosed me with chronic sinusitis. My hope was that the sickness would pass on its own.
In that feeling of certainty, I waited for healing to take place. I went about my day-to-day life without making any big changes. Whatever discomfort or pain I felt, I offered it up in prayer.
A couple of weeks after my appointment, I felt like my head was about to explode. This sent me to the ER, where I spent an entire night going from one waiting room to another. I eventually saw a doctor who ordered a head scan. They found an inflamed portion of my sinus which could be treated with antibiotics and would heal over time.
Leaving the ER, I felt hope.
As the weeks passed, I took my medicine diligently and monitored my ears, but they still felt clogged. Everything still sounded out of place.
I consulted another doctor, who arranged an appointment with a specialist in three months. I’d have to wait the rest of summer to find out more about my illness. In that waiting period, I tried to live my regular routine. I did my best to adjust to how I experienced the world in my present condition: Standing closer to people when talking to them, leaning my head just a little forward if I had to. At some point, I stopped being able to hear my own voice clearly whenever I spoke. It felt like someone else was speaking for me. So I learned to speak a little louder.
Summer turned into fall, and I finally saw the specialist.
He examined my ears, nose, and throat, shining a light on each part. “Everything looks normal,” he said. “It all looks quite healthy.”
I wanted to say that I felt everything but normal and healthy. Despite me wanting to tell him how much I’d been struggling, how expectantly I’d be waiting for this appointment, and how badly I wanted to be healed, all I could do was nod. Walking out of his office, I was left with more questions than answers. Months of preparing to be healed, only to be left waiting once again.
In my uncertainty, I asked God to help me see my sickness in a new way. I had seen just about everyone there was to see and adjusted as best as I believed I could. I waited for what felt like years, only to still be unhealed. There had to be something I was missing.
On my way home from school, I went to evening Mass. When Mass ended, I decided to stay a few minutes longer to pray, asking God: Why haven’t you healed me?
Not only did I get no response, but even the silence felt distant. I looked up and saw the crucifix. I saw his wounds, and I considered my own. Then a feeling came over me that told me I should read. So I took out the only book I had in my backpack: St. Teresa of Avila’s The Life By Herself.
I opened it to the page I last read. After reading a few lines, I ended up on this excerpt.
“Sometimes we seem to force ourselves to weep, but at other times the Lord seems to draw tears from us, so that we cannot resist him.”
As I looked down at the book, I noticed small droplets forming on the page. Tears fell from my face as I experienced a sensation that I can only describe as one that opened me up and allowed everything inside of me to flow. All of the doubts I felt about being healed and the sadness of being broken in this way were suddenly filled with a desire to join it all with him on the crucifix.
I looked up at the altar. My ears were still clogged. Everything I heard, even the silence, still felt far away. But more than any point during this journey, I recognized the presence of someone who’d been there all along.
Every time I struggled to hear someone speaking right next to me, he was there.
Every time it felt like my head was about to burst, he was there.
Every time I spoke without even being able to hear my own voice, he was there.
It’s been a year since I experienced this profound interaction at Mass, and I still have chronic sinusitis. My ears still feel like they’re stuffed with tiny invisible cotton balls. Things still sound out of place. I still don’t know when or how I’ll be healed.
But what I do know is who is waiting with me, and who is preparing me to receive something greater than I could’ve ever imagined.
Until then, I’ll continue noticing how things change little by little, how small moments of trust and surrender can turn into a lifetime of holiness.
As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17)
