If I can concede to one thing it is the fact that patience is something that eluded me for years. I have tried to find it, I have prayed for it, I have looked high and low for it and to be honest I have come to the conclusion that perhaps it's not a trait that I am ready to have. Either that or I had it and lost it so long ago that I couldn't find it again if I could retrace my steps back 20+ years!
I'm the one the doctor writes a prescription for and I take two pills out of 30 and if I don't feel like a new person...well I just don't take anymore. I'm the girl who goes no holes barred into a diet; do 20 crunches and 50 jumping jacks and then want to throw in the towel because I can't put on a size smaller pair of jeans the very next morning. And I am the one who prays for answers and then suddenly changes course in my prayers because I'm not going in the direction that I think God should be leading me. I get frustrated and aggravated because I feel like at 47 I should be more financially stable than what I am and trying to get my finances in order some times is more difficult than trying to pin a kangaroo down on a trampoline!
But with all those faults in allowing patience to take a back seat, I find it ironic that the one thing that I had patience for was my children growing up. It was the one thing that I wanted to last forever and suddenly now I have one with a child of her own, one preparing for college and one with a little over 3 years of high school left. I'm not prepared for sending another one out into the world and any small dose of patience that I have rationed and stowed away is slowly dissipating right in front of me because it's useless to have. They are going to grow up and I couldn't drag it out if I tried.
Why is it that the human nature of us is to want something and to want it now? A new car, a better paying job, a Victoria Secret's body...I could go on and on. But with my children growing up, finding their own ways in life and slowly leaving me behind, there is no need for patience because these things are going too fast.
I have been talking to my college bound student on her future and telling her "don't rush things, take your time"; and at the same time find it ironic that I can't apply that very philosophy to my own life and the things that I do or the things that I am waiting for.
While a part of me is anxious to see what their futures hold, another part of me wants to be patient, longs to be patient, and wait as long as possible for them to grow. As with everything else, God has a plan and their futures are quickly becoming the present though.
I suppose my father's old saying of "you have to pick you own battles" pretty much applies to this as it does many other things in my life. But this battle I have no idea how to win. While I am excited about seeing what they make or their lives, I find myself battling with the parental fantasy of them staying young forever.
So I suppose if I can find a way to implement patience into my life with my children it would be for me to simply enjoy each day with them that God will allow me to have...for now....and not let tomorrow come upon me too quickly.
Through the course of them growing up I have watched them form into the people that God intends for them to be right now, and while it has happened all too quickly; I'm still going to try to - as slowly as possible - wait to find out about what tomorrow holds for them and I am going to try to enforce my patience where it matters....sitting back, trusting their choices ever so patiently as possible and at the same time eagerly await to see what God has in store for my children.
