Waiting

Waiting.   Patience.  Neither of which I am good at.   I will often tell people I do not pray for patience.   I don't know that I am ready for the test of patience that God would bring my way should I pray for an increase of patience, a thought that truly scares me.

As I travel along the road of life, I know I have learned patience.   I see it in the way I now interact with my children.   Perhaps it is just getting older, perhaps is that I am s-l-o-w-l-y learning patience.  With patience, in my mind, is waiting.   I do not excel in this area either.   I find that as soon as I put my mind to something, I dive in and get it done.    It is just who I am.  You can ask Mark, the two times I was pregnant and had to wait for the baby to come,  those were eighteen of the hardest months of my life.   Bless him for staying with me during that time.   I didn't have a lot of the pregnancy symptoms that many women feel thankfully, rather it was a time in my life where my agenda did not matter.  The baby was going to come when the baby was going to come and it did not matter if I wanted it to happen on a specific date or time, I was not in control. 

Currently we are watching the life cycle of a butterfly in our home.   Mark's aunt gave the kids a butterfly kit with all of the tools needed to grow butterflies.   They have books, a container, and received the food and caterpillars last week.  This is the second time we have done this project, but it is one that I am just fascinated with.   Upon emerging from the egg, the caterpillar eats and grows so quickly, you can almost see the growth daily.   Then, as happened Saturday and Sunday for our caterpillars, they go into their chrysalis stage.  This is the part that intrigues me.  While in this stage, the caterpillar becomes a whole new creature.   The legs change, the eyes, change, the body changes, wings form.   They transform from the ugly (in my opinion) caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly.  

I have had the kids journal about the changes they see each day with the caterpillars.  Monday, Addy asked me what we journal this week while the caterpillars are in their chrysalis stage.   My response to her was "We just wait."

I have been thinking about my response to her because it is so easy for me to say to her "We just wait" because I know in seven to ten days we will have five beautiful butterflies to look at.   But I wonder, why I cannot convince myself to "just wait" while God is working in my life.  I don't want to be the ugly caterpillar that crawls around with limited opportunities.   I want to be the beautiful butterfly flying peacefully through God's beautiful creation.   Perhaps it is harder for me to wait because I don't know how long my transformation will last.   Life is a journey and I will always be changing and growing, but how long will it be for the beautiful butterfly to emerge?   Perhaps it won't be here on earth.  Perhaps it will.   Until then, I just wait.   Changing and hopefully listening to Him.