This past Sunday, we had our High Council speaker. And the theme for the meeting was patience.
NOT my favorite topic. (Hence the title of this post)
When I was little and Mom would bake cookies, I could never wait for the cookies to finish baking. I always had to have some of the dough. Mom always chided me that I would get sick, but I didn't, so I kept eating the dough.
The same thing is evident in today's society. We don't wait for letters in the mail anymore. Everything is electronic. Probably 90% of the general population have cell phones, maybe more. We can send text messages to people. Messages that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Sure, this makes planning the weekends activities a whole heap easier, but what do we learn?
Instant Gratification.
Two innocent words that when placed in a specific order have a terrible meaning. That's what we are fighting these days. We live in a world of convenience for everything. Fast food, e-mail, Skype, text messages, frozen meals. I'm not saying that all of these things are bad. But I sure forgot about patience real quick!
I guess I'm writing this because I am not a patient person. I'm waiting for dinner to cook right now and it's killing me. I even made it from scratch! But hopefully it will turn out okay and I will learn that it's okay that I've been working on dinner for the past hour and a half and the food will be devoured in a matter of minutes.
I'm trying to remind myself daily that the Lord has things in store for me that I'm not ready for yet. I don't do well with the unknown. I don't like surprises. I like to have a plan, an order for things. Does this mean everything in my life is orderly and the dishes are always done and the laundry is always put away and my bed is always made? Absolutely not!
But when Earl and I were to be married, we waited "patiently" for the letter from Salt Lake to come giving us permission to be sealed (Earl was previously married). When we got the letter saying that we were to wait, I just about died. This was not according to my plan! Didn't Heavenly Father know that wasn't what I wanted? It may not have been what I wanted, but it was what we needed. Earl and I grew so close our first year of marriage. And it was a wonderful, hard year. But oh so worth it!
Earl and I are now sealed for time and all eternity. That was the best day of my life! Sometimes I feel as though I have a checklist of sorts for my life.
~find a guy-check
~get married-check
~get sealed-check
~start a family-______
That's where I'm at now. I want so badly to be a mom. I want to have a family. But Earl and I aren't in a place to have one right now. And that makes me sad. I don't feel that it's anyone's fault, we just aren't there yet. That's where the patience part comes into play. My thoughts and feelings are on a different wavelength from that of our Heavenly Father. I'm waiting not so patiently for Him to give the go-ahead in our aspirations of a family. So I wait, day in and day out.
What are your thoughts on patience? How do I learn this virtue?
And now I wait patiently for your feedback!
