But Why Can't I Just Have It All Now?!

The water for my tea really can't heat up fast enough. Minutes of waiting for water to brew my tea? It's an eternity. I walk around the kitchen, look at my surroundings, dance on my toes - this can't possibly go any slower. I walk to the other room, searching for my book. I find it, only to misplace it and then have to go searching for it once again. Still, the water on the old stove of the beach house I'm staying in hasn't heated up. I find my book (at last!) and still the water isn't ready to be poured for my tea. Why oh why water are you not ready?! I twirl around the room, looking for a good place to sit and read my book. I find the clearest area of counter space (when there are four children and four adults in one house, a kitchen can get pretty messy) and sit down, delving into the book. I read five pages and still the water isn't ready. This infernal water should be heated, I think, why is it so slow?! I may die of the agony of having to be patient for one more second! Finally the kettle begins to whistle, and I slide (careen) off the counter, practically launching myself at the kettle. I yank it off the stove and pour the water into my mug, nearly squirming with anticipation. The tea, is now mine! As you can see, the word "patience" hardly exists in my vocabulary. If I can't be patient with my tea...doesn't that mean I can't be patient with other things? Sometimes, I think so. What about you? Is patient in your vocabulary, or is it like mine, and somehow patience seems to magically disappear when you most need it?

Patience was the second fruit of the spirit that I learned as a child. According to my parents, patience was when I wanted a cookie but I had to sit and wait till they were finished being baked in the oven. Patience was waiting for my friend to come over. Patience was waiting for Christmas, because a week seemed like an eternity! As a young girl, learning about what patience was, I was starting to think that it was just out there to annoy me. Now, as a young woman, I think differently.

I cannot explain to you how much it is my dream to get married and have a bunch of babies. If it were up to me, I would be married right now. I know there's a great guy out there that will one day be my husband, but I can't help but not want him to be my husband right now. If you already can't tell, I am not patiently waiting to be married and start my own family. Yes, I know I'm only sixteen and the possibility is at least two or three years away, but a girl can want and a girl can dream and a girl can be seriously impatient. But...I wish that I could be married now. I wish I didn't have to wait and be patient, because patience seems like a mood dampener. Honestly, patience makes me made and upset and kind of angry, because I want everything now, instead of when the Lord wants it.

Sometimes I just want to look at the Lord and go: "Yo, bro, speed it up a little, will ya?" I just can't help but be impatient about everything. I used to hound over things that I wanted sooner rather than later, but I've come to acquire some miniscule amount of wisdom: things don't come when I want them to come, they come when God wants them to come. So while I may want a husband and a family now (or a nice cup of tea in a timely manner...), I can't have those things now because it will all happen in God's time. It makes me feel a little sad that I would demand the Creator of the Universe to speed up His timing - how demeaning I am! A great verse says:

"The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride." Ecclesiastes 7:8

Despite knowing that God is all that and a whole warehouse of Pringles, I can't help but want to shake Him and scream: "But why can't I just have it all now?! Why do I have to wait?!" And that screaming then leads to some very serious conversations between me and God, which mostly consist of be telling God why I should get something now and that I deserve it. Who am I to be so prideful that I think I can boss Jesus around? Patience is better than pride, and as I look through my daily life, my life is full of impatience.

I'm not going to say patience is easy, because that would be a lie. Patience is so hard it hurts all over and aches in your bones as if you were stuck in time. While patience may be tedious, it's beautiful. Want to know why? Because God has patience with us. We make mistakes, take time to learn our lessons, forget things easily and sin often. How much patience it must take with us petty, sinful creatures. Yet even though we may be difficult, the Lord still somehow exudes the most beautiful amount of patience. So don't be prideful and bossy, be patient and careful, because God knows the plans He has for you (Jeremiah 29:11) and why on earth would we want to interfere with something as breathtaking and beautiful as that?

Now sit down, pull out your Bible, fold your hands together, read and pray. The thing I learned about being patient in the Holy Spirit, is that the best way to pass the time is talking to the One who is changing your life and teaching you the patience you are to exude, too.