You know, I grew up hearing the phrase “patience is a virtue,” and it became a drone to my ears. It was something that all the adults said but, as time slowly started moving faster the older I got, the more the words lost meaning.
Now, as I sit at almost 33 with a new career and little else to show for my age, those words keep coming back. And they’re not meaningless, almost soundless drones in the background anymore.
Instead, they’re a four-worded curse, most days, reminding me that as much as I love to be in control, I can’t be. Not if I want things to work out according to God’s plan.
Sure, I have free will and I can make decisions on my own. I’ve done it before. But I’ve learned that doing things my own way—under my control—tends to result in a lot more pain and unpleasantness than there needed to be. God can always redeem our lives when we step off the blessed path, but why make things harder for ourselves?
I’m in a season of “Wait and See.”
It seems like it’s that for every aspect of my life.
God-centered relationship: wait and see. Low-intensity job: wait and see. Fall semester housing: wait and see. Career following graduation: wait and see.
And I don’t like waiting to see. I want to see right now. I want to know what’s going to happen next RIGHT NOW so I can plan ahead. I want to know what I’m doing. I want to know that what I’m waiting for is worth the wait and that I’m not waiting worthlessly. Waiting for something that’s never going to happen.
Oh, and that’s so hard, isn’t it? Trusting that what we believe to be true WILL be true? Or that if it isn’t, that God has something better in store?
Trust is hard.
Until I look back over my life and remember all the times I should have been left with nothing, and yet somehow God stretched every cent until the moment when the next check arrived. Or touched someone’s heart to bless me with a twenty when she didn’t have any idea that I was struggling financially, and that paid for my gas for the whole week.
There are also the more intangible things. Like somehow knowing how to write in-depth psychological parts of my books when I haven’t taken those courses. Or knowing—somehow—when someone needs extra prayer or simply a word of encouragement.
These are all those “God moments” where I can look back and see where He has been actively working in my life and in the lives of those around me.
I still remember the day in 2016 when my dad was driving me back to Southern Maryland after I’d visited for a weekend. I was wrestling with the idea of leaving teaching elementary music. And I asked, “Do you believe God talks to us?”
He sat there, quiet for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure if he was going to answer. Finally, he said, “Well, I don’t know about that, because He hasn’t talked to me. But I do know He put me in that hospital. And I know He brought me back out.”
Seeing my dad’s life, his heart transformed, is the biggest example I have for seeing God active in this world.
So, yes, living in the here and now can be difficult. Especially when we don’t know what’s coming next.
But if we can pause and reflect on the good God has done in our lives, we’ll start to relearn that patience really is a virtue, one well worth knowing.
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Brittany Stonestreet 