| | Patience: Both Art and Virtue | |

 

 

Patience.

What a word.

 

 

Most of us would define patience as “the nearly impossible task of waiting; a feat of the utmost difficulty, a.k.a, the hardest challenge ever known to man”

. . . or something like that.

 

The Merriam Webster Dictionary, however, defines this virtue as “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.”

 

You mean, I can accept delay without panic or fear?

I actually possess the propensity to just .  . .  wait?

 

Who knew!

 

 

If I’m fully honest, patience is one of my biggest struggles.

I grapple with the task of waiting.

I fight with the fear of uncertainty.

I wrestle with the idea of having it all figured it out . . . all the time and right away.

 

I hate sitting still.

Seriously.

 

You know those people who feel the need to complete a task before the microwave beeps? (Because, after all, waiting thirty seconds is nothing more than pure foolishness—unbelievably grueling, indeed.)

 

Yeah? Well, I’m one of those people.

I know, I know. I’m not proud of it.

 

My family has to force me to schedule in rest days . . . because well . . . who has time for rest when there are so many things that must be completed . . . and completed as quickly as possible, right?

I don’t like to wait, and my struggle with patience is an unfortunately deep-rooted one.

 

The ironic part?

My current stage of life requires A LOT of patience.

 

Where will God lead me?

Who will He have me marry?

What will He have me do?

What is my purpose?

 

Right now, I don’t have an answer to any of those questions.

Therefore, I must wait.

 

Yet in this season of waiting, I have learned that God’s plan is not just the best plan, it’s the only plan . . . the only plan worth implementing.

 

I have learned that the things of which I once dreamed and the goals for which I once strived, while good, were not best.

I have learned that it is a true blessing to not receive all that I want, or have wanted.

I have learned that waiting, though difficult, is a gift.

 

I can talk about this topic for hours, but I want to leave you with a verse. One that I believe summarizes perfectly all that I wish to say.

 

 ^“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”

—- Psalm 27:14

 

This verse is plastered on a letter board in my room, and though I’ve grown quite accustomed to its presence now, whenever I take the time to read it, I feel a sense of peace.

 

Peace that my future rests in the One who created the very presence of time—past, present, and future.

Peace that His ways are so much better than mine—always.

Peace that I can rest in His will and wait on His plan—-not mine.

 

So as I said:

Patience.

What a word.

 

With love,

Delaney.