worth waiting for

It's a known fact that I have a tiny issue with patience.

At times, I am likened to a senior citizen in the Meijer checkout, with my eyes annoyingly watching the pen of the person in front of me who whips out a checkbook to pay for the groceries. I become anxious in the passenger seat of our car when drivers in the fast lane won't move over for Scott. Sometimes I even mutter things. Aloud.

It's not pretty, this impatience. But it's me. I am willing to admit this weakness. Marrying Scott has helped me conquer (somewhat) this little blemish of my character, and I like to think I've come quite far in my time tolerance. Most often, though, I struggle with challenges that are deeper than tracking my order on UPS.com.

And so it was last summer and fall as my personal time table wasn't matching up with God's. I couldn't understand why things just weren't going my way. After all, I was armed with lots of knowledge that was put into practice regularly!

I prayed for God to give in to my plan. And I prayed often. Then it hit me. I had to change my prayer. Instead of "fulfill my wishes, Lord" it was "give me the patience and peace to understand that you are in control, and things will happen when you are ready, not me."

Not a month went by before we learned I was pregnant!

Come August, Scott and I will have another little one to bring us joy in this house, and we couldn't be more happy. Already our baby is loved and eagerly anticipated. Our early ultrasound has adorned the front of our fridge for a month now.

In the midst of this pregnancy, though, I'm doing my best to appreciate our current state of being. I'm enjoying my freedoms, my uninterrupted sleep, and my downtime. I'm trying hard to let the planner in me take a rest, and instead, take pleasure in these next six months.

It's great how God works, isn't it? All he wants is for us to be close with him. To put him first. Yet time and again, I forget to consult the one who already knows the plans for my life.

So I'm still learning. I'm not perfect. Luckily my husband and children don't expect me to be perfect. And neither does my heavenly father.

Will my patience change? Probably not completely. Have I learned something? Most definitely. Now it's just a matter of practicing it regularly.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:9