far from finished

Have patience.  Be still.  Remember all is a process.  Plans do not mean immediate completion.

Though the first two items I repeat somewhat hourly to a boy or two in my life, the whole of it, the patience, the stillness, the remembering, the reminder, is a mantra for myself.  Words repeated daily to keep my spirit focused and my flesh in check.

Journeys are historically not my favorite.  I am a finish line girl for sure.  Check it off and move on to the next thing.  There is a reason Mary Poppins was a role model in my early days and still is for that matter, and it is not because I desire to be practically perfect in every way, well it's not JUST because of that.  Mary Poppins was a doer, a planner, a packer, a cleaner, a beautiful, musical, loving, but to point lady who could snap her fingers and be done.

I recently read a list of character traits that describe other type Aers like myself, and my sweet Mary. It's good to see written in black and white an itemized list of things you can relate to, things that make you amen and high five the others who feel the same feels.  Especially when on that list is how much you love itemized lists! Misery may indeed love company, but we all feel a extra coziness when we find our kindred spirits. The ones you can make out of the blue statements to that are immediately understood and don't require words of explanation.  Dear old C. S. Lewis said “Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ." Emblazoned in my mind are those conversations where friendship dug its roots in because connections were made over the deepest and silliest of things.

My desire is to dream and plan, to pray for the Spirit to direct me and show me how He wants me to proceed.  When you pray for paths to be directed and listen to the dreams that arise you feel joy as ideas come flowing into your mind and onto the pages of your journals.  The difficulty for me is in realizing that saying and accomplishing are entirely different things.  Not a far step away from the voice of encouragement is a less than encouraging voice demanding that I hurry up and accomplish all the things.  There's your job now go and do it.  Alongside is the fear that if I don't in fact get it all done I have failed and should give up trying any further lest I just fail again.  It is a daily, yes daily, struggle for me to ignore those lies and wait.  To ponder before producing.  To give grace to myself as I have been given.  To remember that seeds do not grow into oaks overnight.  They are watered, protected, pruned and left to grow at the appropriate pace until one day you look over and beauty shades ground around you.

However, in the past couple years I have been learning to appreciate the process.  To soak in the scenery and not just wish for it to whiz by faster so that I can get where I'm going and be done with it.  I expect this to be somewhat of a lifelong learning process as hardwires are hard to replace and default modes are the easiest thing to slip back into.  So while my lists of hopes and desires may seem as if they are sitting dormant, I am reminded that Spring does come and without the season of preparation nothing can grow.  So I praise my God for patience and stillness and promise of Hope that He is the one who began the work and He will be the one to complete it in me.