Patient Trust

When I read Kelly's blog the other day, she referred me to Amy's blog, where she had written a wonderful passage concerning waiting and how difficult the unknown can be.  She encouraged people to share their stories about when God felt far away or when His plan seemed unclear.  I have personally struggled with this a great deal.  As a single woman, I hope and pray that marriage and a family is in my future, but I also have to accept that this may not be God's plan for me.  I am SO STUBBORN sometimes and just cannot wrap my head around the idea that God might not want this for me!  It's hard to balance between cynicism and idealism.  I want to remain hopeful, but I also want to be realistic.  My relationship with God helps me find that balance.  When I am filled with anxiety over the future, when I am impatient and want instant gratification, when I begin to doubt God's plan for me, this prayer helps tremendously.


Trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient
in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip 
all intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all
that progress is made 
by passing through
some stages of instability.


And so I think it is with you,
your ideas mature gradually
let them grow
let them shape themselves 
without undue haste.


Do not try to force them,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.


Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
That his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
In suspense and incomplete.

---Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

If you get a chance, check out Amy's blog.  There were some amazing stories shared and some great examples of strength even in the midst of suffering.