What Fermentation Taught Me About Waiting

I learned how to wait by watching vegetables ferment on my kitchen counter. During the pandemic, when days blurred together and the future felt sealed shut, jars of pickled vegetables became my quiet companions. They asked nothing from me except time. In their stillness, I began to notice that waiting was not as empty as it felt.

At that time, my real waiting was for the person I believed God had prepared for me. Because of the pandemic, I wondered if my prayers had been delayed, or if the answer had somehow moved farther away. Pickling and fermenting became my only joy, my small resting place—a way to trust time when I could not trust anything else.

I often wanted to open the jars too soon. The colors were already changing, the vegetables already softened, and I wondered if they might be ready. But I knew that tasting early would only give me something unfinished—sharp, unbalanced, not yet itself. Waiting required restraint. Once the lid was closed, there was nothing more to do but leave it alone. Slowly, I began to recognize that my life felt the same way. I wanted answers before they had time to form, reassurance before anything had settled. Fermentation reminded me that some things cannot be rushed into clarity without losing what they are meant to become.

In time, I stopped listening for sudden answers and learned to trust quiet movement. I returned my hope to where it belonged—not to timelines or outcomes, but to God Himself. During the pandemic, I knew I was not the only single person sitting in silence, waiting for life to reopen. I began to pray differently then. I prayed for the person God was preparing to walk beside me—for my future coworker in life, my companion—believing that even in delay, God was guiding him one step closer to me. Like fermentation, hope did not arrive loudly or all at once. It worked slowly, in the dark, until I found myself able to rest inside the waiting.