God, Please Give me Patience... NOW!!!!

I remember praying for patience a lot during high school at my nursing home job. By God's grace alone I worked there for 2 years. Those prayers for patience were always always always tested and answered with great opportunities to be patient!

I'd like to say that I am a relatively easy-going and gentle person. The last two weeks the monster inside of me has emerged. I must not handle stress well at all. And mostly I am frustrated with myself at how worked up I get over the littlest things.

I asked my dad recently how to deal with difficult people in the work place, and he said over and over again, patience. This coming from the man in my life I know the best and who I know has a terrible temper. Unfortunately, I take after him in not only his looks, and personality, but his temper too.

The last two weeks my boss has been on vacation, and apparently at other jobs when the boss is gone it's basically vacation time for the employees. Not the case at my job. I have been running around crazy almost 9 hours straight for the last two weeks. The thing is, I can do it, I know I can. The thing that bothers me is when other people don't do their part of the job to help the whole team. Also, in my frustration with others I get worried that my coworkers perceive me to be incapable of handling all that I am responsible for while my boss is out. I wish I was better at controlling my freak outs.

Thankfully God put some good, understanding friends in my path today who were rather encouraging and that helped immensely. I put on that positive attitude and decided that today was not going to be a terrible day, even if it started out not so great, I was determined it would end well, and it did.

Tomorrow will be no different, I will pray for patience, the tests will come. No matter what is thrown at me, I hope that when the test comes, I will pass and pass with a higher grade than today. I want to be Christlike in my work and I want to speak with grace and gentleness. I suppose those are skills that take time to learn and learning through mistakes. He will teach me, that I am certain!

Time?

Thursday I said good-bye to my last friend who shared the current stage of life in this city.

Friday I hid with memories and people of dishcrew.

Saturday I cried for a few hours as it hit me: my dear friend really did get on that plane, she really did go to India for the next 4 months, and no, I did not go.

I so desperately wanted to sit and talk with someone, or again, hide by spending time with other friends, but everyone was busy. The facts are, the people around me are consumed in different things than I am at this point of life. I know many married people, many single people, but either of these groups defined by relationship status have a secondary identifier: school or ministry or both, and now most of them if married, families too.

I don't have a church anymore, and I am just at the end of one ministry and have my foot in the door of another.

Not sure what to do.

As I sat with the hot tears streaming down my face Saturday, I found myself yet again clinging to the only Hope left, the Only One who is always there and never fails.

My faith in question, I have to cling to Him. He will guide. I am reminded of the countless people who have gone on before me, they risked it all. They gave up all they knew and all for the sake of the Gospel.

What am I doing for the Gospel to be heard?

Today as I walked down the busy streets of Chicago, in the early, dark morning, and again this bright, sunny afternoon, the unsettling stirring inside me saying how I don't like the city was clear for the first time in almost 5 years. Was it just something today or is this the time that God is moving me on? I have no clue. I have to keep reminding myself that right now I don't have to have it all figured out. I have to trust day by day that my God will take care of me.

I have to remember those times in the past that He's been faithful and how I look back at the obvious intervention of my Mighty God. He's not done, why should I doubt?

Do I have fear? Well of course! Do I want to know now? Well yes!

But tonight I will sleep, knowing that if I'm given tomorrow, I'll go to what I know and live for Him regardless, trusting that He will guide me.