Patience and Trust

I feel like I’ve been posting nothing personal lately--just housing updates and lists of projects accomplished. True, that’s been kinda my life lately, and getting our house ready to sell has been all-consuming for our whole family. But where is God in all this?

I sense He is teaching me two things, especially: patience (never has been my strong point) and trust.

I have been impatient with how long it has taken to get our house on the market. I thought we’d have all the painting and repairs done weeks ago by our friend, but he hasn’t had as much time available as often as we had hoped. I hoped that Papa Rooster could make time somehow to help paint and chip away at the endless to-do list, but he’s had commitments with work plus rehearsals and has had little free time or energy.

So we’ve missed the first three weekends of June, prime time for home sellers. We may have missed the “the perfect house” at a remarkable price, because we weren’t even close to listing ours. We may not be able to close and move before school starts! (Not the end of the world since we’re planning to homeschool all our kids next year, but still, it would be a very rocky beginning to our school year.) What if we end up needing all the winter clothes I packed? (OH NOOOOOOOO…..)

But I sense God saying, Be patient. Trust Me.

Maybe a better house will be coming on the market later on in Kenosha. Maybe we’ll get more for our house because of the timing, or because of all the work we’ve put into it before listing it. Maybe we never will know why the timing ends up how it it ends up. Maybe the delays have all been a form of spiritual warfare and God will have to work it all out for good somehow.

He WILL work it all out for good, somehow, won’t He? This won’t turn into some kind of nightmare situation that might actually involve…SUFFERING…will it? (OH NOOOOOOO……)

Okay, now, I don’t let myself actually give words to these thoughts when I’m not writing blog posts. But they're there, just under the surface.

So I'm exercising my patience muscles. I'm stretching out those trust tendons. I'm choosing trust and patience and faith in God over the temptation to fear and be anxious and worry.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Mt. 6:26-27)