Finding My Patience

The storm was a big one, and the plants on my balcony still look a little ragged from the wear.
My potted fern had taken a tumble from a high plant shelf and still was a little squatty.
And there are leaves strewn across the wooden planking.
But for the most part – all survived.
 
The one thing I noticed though is that my little ornamental garden rock with the word “patience” on it was gone.
 
So many times, I’d looked out my bedroom window from my “prayer chair” frustrated about something – or someone – and I’d seen that little rock.
 
“Patience” it would whisper to me.
 
I would take a deep breath. You’re right God. Patience. I will wait. Again.
 
But now – the patience was missing.

If I crane my neck, I think I can see it peeking out from where the winds of the storm had tossed it.
 
As a mother of 5, I’ve needed patience more times than I can count. And can I just say that these COVID-19 days are super challenging? I don’t know about you, but it’s been a bit of a valley walk for me lately. I keep wanting things to go back to where they were. But I know that’s not how God works most of the time.
 
Slowly I get up from my WFH chair among the balcony plants. I move the slow-growing heuchera and a gangly coleus that’s still recovering from a topple.
 
Ah! There is the rock – right side up and hiding partially under the bamboo plant shelf.
 
I pull the spider webs off and put it back to its rightful place on the of the bamboo.
 
“Patience”-it still says still. Even after the storm.
 
Even after COVID-19, forever masks, and the loneliness that sometimes comes from too much “distancing.”
 
Patience.
 
Carefully I position the rock it so once again it’s easily visible from my “prayer chair.”
 
I know I’ll need that word today … how about you?

A Good Word

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. - Galatians 6:9
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