Waiting. . .

It is a sure thing that if you pray for greater patience, God will provide you with many opportunities in which to practice patience.  Patience is not like placing an order in the drive-through lane of a fast food restaurant.  It is acquired oh, so slowly. . . and painfully.  Being married to a southerner man gives me lots of opportunities for patience.  So does having 5 kids.  And shopping at Walmart.  Last weekend I had to make a quick return  at Walmart.  As luck would have it,  there was no line at the customer service desk.  But, in order to get my returned item "ticketed" by the greeter, I had to wait behind a woman who had 20 individual clothing items, each of which needed a ticket.    This took some time after which I  followed her to the customer service desk and waited some m ore, while her items were recounted and she went out to her car to get her i.d.! How does one experience patience in the midst of waiting?   I took deep breaths.  I tried to make a mental list of what else I needed to purchase at Walmart.  I made menus for the week.  I even tried to put myself in the woman's shoes.  But, all strategies did little to impart a feeling of patience.  They gave me a facade of patience, but inside I was fuming! 

Much more significant than waiting in a line at Walmart, is continuing to wait for Mark to secure a job.  It has been a little over a year since he lost his job.  When it happened I don't think we ever believed that a year later he would still be looking and we would still be waiting for another job.  There are so many ways that I try to avoid waiting.  I don't have to stand in line at Walmart.  If faced with a traffic jam, I can detour.  If struggling with a home situation, I can blame others.  But a job.  You can't pretend not to want a job or that you don't need a job.  You can be avoidant for awhile, but you always come back to waiting for a job. 

In early March we received some wonderful news.  A company Mark had previously interviewed with wanted him.  But, even in this good news there has been waiting.  Many good things are happening, but still we waiting for a written offer.  Mark is waiting to pull out his business suits, get in his car and actually go to an office that's not in his bedroom.  We feel pretty confident he will get a written offer.  But, it's like seeing your destination from the air and not being cleared for landing.  We continue to circle and wait.

But, again the question. . . how is patience birthed from waiting?  It's hard to see the causal link.  "If you wait, then you will be patient."  That is not my experience.   I want more than "the look" of patience.  I want that settledness in my soul, that  peace that is not shaken by long lines, slow people or delayed jobs.  I want to believe that when God has me wait, in big or small ways, that it is His very best for me.  If I believed that waiting was a gift, how  much more gladly would I accept it and stand still in it?   Perhaps I wouldn't focus so much on just "getting through" the wait, as I would just savoring the wait.    Maybe the best gifts of all are to be found in the waiting rather than the outcome.  And maybe patience isn't goal, but the byproduct.