Impatience

Heavenly Father is timing is so much better than my own. You'd think I'd have completely overcome my impatient spirit by now, but alas, I am tragically flawed...

Take my experiences of Friday night, for example:

The week prior, the lessons in church had prompted me to make 2 goals.

1. Make a list of questions for General Conference
&
2. GO TO THE TEMPLE.

Neither were such an unusual goal for me. Each Conference I make a list of questions to be answered & I go to the temple every Saturday. However, due to unfortunate circumstances, I had missed being able to go the week before. Therefore, on Friday, the last day that I could go before Conference began, I was absolutely determined to make it. I was only going to be able to make it there right before the last session began, but I timed it with a few minutes to spare. Just as my roommate, Trina, & I were walking out the door, however, she got a phone call from another friend of ours who wanted to go with us. As we waited for our addition, I stared down the clock & as minutes multiplied into the double digits, I went into panic mode.

"They're going to close the doors before we get there!"
I'm not going to make it on time."

I patted an uneven rhythm on the steering wheel as my patience faded away. Finally, at 7 minutes till closing time, the girl rushed out of the door. My greeting was curt, to say the least. When we got to the temple, 2 minutes AFTER door closing, we rushed out of the car & half-way up the hill the girl paused. She had forgotten something in the car & had to go back. That was when I left both Trina & the girl behind & rushed through the doors myself. "Cutting it close," the friendly brother at the desk said with a chuckle. "Yeah," I said with a sigh.

It is hard to explain how foolish I felt when I entered the session & saw a sister from my ward whom I was clearly meant to encounter & I would not have encountered at all had everything gone according to my plan.

Again, on Saturday, in my rush for timeliness, I got frustrated with having to wait in the line of a slow checker at Michael's only to run smack into a friend of my roommate & I who was exhausted & needed our assistance.

To be completely honest, as I look back over the happenings of the last week, instance after instance stands out in my mind all of which point directly to the fact that I need to simmer down & realize that God has it all under control.

With my list of concerns & questions I went to General Conference & guess what I heard in every talk...

Patience. Have patience. Be patient. Exude patience.
BECAUSE
He offers deliverance, safety, healing, etc.
In essence, He offers everything we need but IN HIS OWN TIME & IN HIS OWN WAY.

Tonight, in fact, cemented that principle into my mind & here's how:

My roommate & I were having a fun conversation about our dealings with our father's. "My Dad," I said, "always calls me a 'dorkfish." "Had any corn dogs lately?" he asks me on a regular basis. Trina & I laughed over that a bit & while still chortling, we heard a knock at our door. It was my old roommate Holly.

"So, am I crazy?" she started the conversation, "I was driving home from the temple tonight & I felt like I needed to go to the Creamery." "I went in," she said, "& saw this package of corn dogs...I bought it & as I got close to your house, I felt like I needed to give them to you."

My jaw dropped to the floor. CORN DOGS? How did God know that I was going to make that comment about my father 30 seconds prior? How did he know that it would be just the "coincidence" to lift our spirits? CORN DOGS?!? Something so insignificant in the grander scheme of things, something so inconsequential, but that instantaneously filled my soul with joy. The Lord loves me. He loves me ALOT. He loves me enough to give me one more laugh for the day. He loves me enough to let me know that if He can orchestrate the delivery of a punchline so flawlessly, He can change my life in the beating of a heart. If God can give me a corn dog, why not increased health or financial security, or an eternal companion? He can & He will when the time is right. That is the reality that I am faced with & the peace that fills my heart.