Faith & Patience: Part 1

When I think back a year ago I can clearly remember being half terrified and half excited about graduating college.  I had no idea where my life was headed or what it would look like in a year.  All I knew was that I was going to move to Nashville after the summer.  The adventure of going out on your own is cause for lots of excitement but also cause for plenty of fear.  Leaving the safety and comfort of the known and heading into the unknown is a necessary but terrifying part of everyone’s life.

Even a year later those feelings are still a close companion.  My life, as exciting as it is, is very unknown.  I’ve been here for 9 months and I still dont have a traditional job (which I’m ok with now).  I live and work being able to see only a few steps in front of me; living in complete faith that next month’s bills will be paid and food will be on the table.  Its only by the grace of God and the support of my amazing friends and family that the unknown doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.

So, needless to say, I’ve learned a lot about faith and patience in the past year.  But I still feel like the least patient and faithful person I know.  I still question where I am and what I’m doing.  I still look back and wonder what things would be like if I had handled stiuations better or made different choices.  Through that I’ve discovered that faith and patience are something that you choose each and every day.  Its not something you learn, add to your resume and move on to the next spiritual discipline to master.

It’s a process, a journey.

So to all of you who are in the same boat as me: Hi, we’re going to be here a while….and that’s ok.

Here is what I read yesterday that got me thinking about all this:

“Also we can let ourselves off that desperate question, “Am I in the right place?”  ”Have I done the right thing?”  Of course, we must sometimes acknowledge sins and mistakes and we must try to learn from them; but we should not foster the kind of worry that leads to dispair.  God’s providence means that wherever we have got to, whatever we have done, that is precisely where the road to heaven begins.  However many cues we have missed, however many wrong turnings we have taken, however unnecessarily we may have complicated our journey, the road still beckons, and the Lord still ‘waits to be gracious’ to us.” – From Prayer by Simon Tugwell

So choose faith and patience today.  God can’t wait to give it to you!