What is there to wait for?

I was called to the ICU because someone was caught between life and death. When I arrived, doctors, nurses, and the entire medical team were working urgently to save the patient. The room was filled with movement, instructions, and hope. Despite their efforts, the patient could not be brought back.

It was 6:45 p.m. I found myself sitting quietly in an ICU room with a man who had just died. There was no family at his bedside. No one was pleading for him to stay. No cries of “Wake up” or “Please don’t go.” No familiar expressions of love or desperation. Everything was still. His life in this world had come to an end. I did not know his story, nor why no family was present, but the silence spoke deeply.

A year earlier, I had been living at St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo. During that time, I chanted with the monks an antiphon from Psalm 39:7:“And now, Lord, what is there to wait for? In you rests all my hope.”

As I sat in that hospital room—now a very different kind of chapel—I closed my eyes and heard those words again. I do not know if this man was ready to go. I do not know if he wanted to leave yet. But in that moment, I asked myself: What was left to wait for? If hope no longer rested in this life, then it could only rest in God. I wondered whether I could chant those same words with confidence when everything familiar is stripped away. Could I truly place my hope in God when life no longer offers promises? In moments like this, faith is no longer theoretical—it becomes real. Hoping in God helps us release what we can no longer hold and trust what we cannot control. Life here ends, but hope does not.

As a chaplain, I am reminded that even when medicine reaches its limit, presence, prayer, and trust in God remain. I pray that, in the midst of his final moments, this man knew he was not alone. And I pray that when my own moment comes, I too will be able to say with trust: “In you, Lord, rests all my hope.”