Patience Found

I always called myself an impatient person. Clinging to the school of Instant Gratification, I was always striving to get what I wanted when I wanted it, and throwing a perfect little fit when things didn't go my way. I remember in school, always coming up with my grand idea for a project so quickly and executing it regardless of the kinks that could have been smoothed out with some thought and time. I laugh when I think about how impatient I was for Cody's proposal when we had been dating for two years and I was facing a three month study abroad program that would leave us thousands of miles apart. If only I could have breathed a deep breath and known that God's timing is perfect, a concept I truly didn't know back then. How God must have wanted to take me by the shoulders when he looked down on Cody on his knee in a Venetian gondola, and say, "Aren't you glad he waited??"
Fast forward to the waiting for job offers- mine and Cody's, tedious waiting for my belly to finally protrude with pregnancy, the pacing back and forth waiting for colic to leave my poor baby, waiting for new friends to confide in, and several hundreds of other times that I have waited.
Maybe it's maturity- or more likely, maturity in my walk with Christ- revealing that the waiting hasn't been such an irritating thorn in my side like it used to be. Just looking back on this past year, I have waited with a little more grace and peace, living during the wait, and not just pacing and striving the whole time. Right now, I find myself in the long wait of desiring to be published, and coming to dead ends, teasing doors that swing shut just as quickly as they were pushed open, and the gnawing thought that I am wasting a whole bunch of time. But, in the wait, I am slowly finding that the weight I used to put on the outcome is not as heavy, for my yolk is carried by greater shoulders, shoulders that I can put my head on and know that at least one wait will end in an outcome of ecstatic joy and reward. I write this, I guess, to keep me a little accountable, because I am not saying it's easy to wait, it's just nice to know there is a way to do it differently than I did before.