I’m not a patient person. For the longest time, I was so convinced I was that I even advertised it. Meaning, if somebody asked me to name three qualities I like about myself, patience would be one of them. I would have a hard time finding the other two, but patience was always a safe, default answer.
Turns out I got it wrong.
The version of patience that lived inside my head was very much connected to kindness, compassion and in many cases, compromise. I do try my best to be kind, compassionate and I compromise like it’s my job, so by my own definition, I should be a patient person.
But patience stretches far beyond that.
Patience is about trusting the process. It’s about planting the seeds and watching them grow at their own pace. It’s anticipating the challenges ahead and finding ways to deal with them as they come. It thrives on faith.
Somehow I found myself in a season of my life when my patience is constantly tested. A season that is not about harvest.
As a sidenote, you might find a lot of plant-related metaphors in this letter. You can blame
for that. Thank you, Ashley, for inspiring me with your beautiful parallels between nature and life. They helped me finally give shape to a messy cluster of thoughts that I’ve been holding on to for a long time.During this season, I’m forced to put some things on hold, things that I hold dear or I want to have but can’t just yet. I need to sow, wait, hope and visualize a future (near or distant) when I will reap the rewards.
It has crossed my mind that maybe I am spoiled. That I fell victim to the pull of instant gratification that has plagued my generation and all others that follow. That I forgot that good things take time and work and if they’re meant to happen, they will.
It’s not a matter of “when I get this, I’ll be happy”. I know how volatile happiness is, so that’s not what I am chasing. I’m chasing stability. I’m chasing a feeling of things finally falling into place.
Thankfully, I have people around me who are constantly showing me how to be more patient. To trust the process and let faith hold my hand during this time. To be okay with this in-betweeness. To see that “not yet” does not mean “not ever”.
This season of my life might be short. It might be over before I know it. Maybe I’ll look back in a year and wonder what all the fuss was about. For now, I’m trying to plant ahead, nurture the seeds and see how tall they grow.
Let time do its job and keep pushing myself to do my part.
What a beautiful surprise to see this today. Sometimes it's all about taking our hands of the wheel and letting nature take its course. Like you, I always thought I was a patient person, while trying to race to the finish line of anything I wanted 'right now." Its such a practice of surrender to actually plant the seed and step away. Thank you so much for your kind words, they came to me when I needed them most. :)