By Jennifer L. Boen
Ministry Team Writer

I have never considered myself a very patient person. I could blame it on my years as a newspaper reporter and columnist, responding to breaking news, always working on deadlines. But I think my impatience is more so a God-given personality trait. After all, Jeremiah 1:5 assures me that God knew me before He formed me in my mother’s womb.

My impatience in life has been both battle and blessing — the battle in that God has allowed me to struggle with wanting immediate answers and desiring a quick fix for a problem; the blessing in my impatience is that God is teaching me to “Trust in the LORD with all your heart” and to “lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5 NIV).

In late 2018, I began noticing some health changes, mainly gastrointestinal. A few years earlier, I had left my newspaper job and took a position at Indiana University School of Medicine Fort Wayne as director of a fund for research, education, and support services for people with multiple sclerosis, a disease that has affected my family. Instead of covering TB outbreaks and pandemics and other health news, I was helping connect people impacted by a currently incurable disease. It was fulfilling, less stressful, and better hours.

But five years into the job, I had unexplained weight loss, bouts of vomiting and other GI symptoms. Routine medical tests uncovered no issues. I made dietary changes. Symptoms continued to worsen. I felt tired all the time.

My husband, Dan, was increasingly concerned. One night we made a trip to the emergency room due to unrelenting pain I had after eating. A CT showed nothing abnormal. We talked and prayed about my retiring for good. I felt God nudging me that way but also could not imagine being out of the mix of things in life, of helping others, of using my God-given talents. Though we have eight grandkids, I maintained I was not a sit-in-a-rocker-with-my-knitting version of a grandma.

I resigned from the medical school, and a few weeks later, I was back in the ER. This time the doctor ordered a CT with contrast, which shows vessels as well as structures. The scan revealed blood clots occluding two of the three main arteries that carry blood from the aorta to the digestive system. Every time I ate, exercised or even walked, only a minuscule amount of blood was getting to my intestines.

Acute mesenteric ischemia is rare, diagnosed in just 5 of 100,000 acute surgical hospital admissions. It often goes undiagnosed until the intestines begin dying, resulting in a 75 percent or higher mortality rate, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“Finally,” I thought, “we know what’s wrong. Let’s get this fixed so I can go on with life.”

But God had other plans. I hemorrhaged after a minimally invasive surgery to stent one of the blocked arteries. Five months later, sicker than ever, I had an open procedure. The stent already had a blood clot in it, so doctors inserted a Dacron bypass for both blocked arteries. It was a nine hour surgery, due partly to a major hemorrhage during the operation. Later on, I was diagnosed with a blood clotting disorder and will take anti-coagulants the rest of my life.

Fast forward to 2026. At this point in life, I would have imagined I’d be doing more traveling, more volunteering, more “doing” in general. God has loudly and clearly said, “This is my waiting time, not my doing time.”

Waiting is a challenge, especially for someone like me whose modus operandi is “we’ve got to do something.” Though I have good days, I still struggle with GI symptoms that cause me to cancel plans, take to the sofa or sit in that rocker (though I’ve yet to take up knitting!). Doctors are still working to find effective treatments. For example, I now have a spinal cord stimulator that eases pain. But as to the cause of ongoing symptoms? For that I wait.

But I am learning that waiting is not passive; it’s deliberate, intentional. The book of Lamentations says waiting well brings hope.

Whatever you are waiting for, whether physical healing, healing in relationships, or any other need, remember: “The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly” (Lamentations 3:25-26a NKJV).