Learning to be patient

Since my trip to Colorado to accompany my dear husband on the drive back to Virginia our life has been topsey-turvey.

We drove for two very long days, rested a day, and then drove to the beach for a much needed vacation with our daughters.

While we were there my mom called to tell us that the graders had arrived to remove the trees that were in the way of the building project.

So we came home to a mess in the back yard, two happy dogs and clean house-thanks momma.

Noah drove up from Nashville for the 4th of July and we coerced him into helping build steps off the front porch. My sister Heather came down with her two kids to visit and we had a nice weekend.

Now we are settled and Tracy is waiting for the graders to finish removing trees and get the pad ready for concrete so he can get busy with the building.

But while he is waiting he is quickly making his way through the honey-do list.

And I am selecting new countertops, new kitchen appliances, paint samples, and making decisions about flooring in the new addition.

Fun, but extremely frustrating and, occasionally, overwhelming. There have been times when I have gone to the store to look at samples and after standing there and looking for awhile leaving more undecided than when I went in.

We are all very anxious to get this building project going-we definitely need a garage. Currently we have tools and all manner of 'stuff' on our front porch to keep them out of the weather.

And at the rate I have been going barefoot in the rain and working on creating a new front flower garden--I guess we are falling into the 'hillbilly' stereotype.

It is just so hard to wait when you want something so badly. Waiting for inspectors, for graders, for the weather........
You would think we would know how to wait well after so many years in the military where the unofficial motto is 'hurry up and wait'.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

I read this devotional this morning and I realized that I am so anxious because I trying to make my own little heaven here on earth.

It's human nature to want to control our own space and to create and glory in our own work. When there is so much to do it is really hard to slow down and pace yourself so that you enjoy the work as much as the end product.

We live in a farming community now and it really seems that no one gets in a hurry.

Patience.

That word is peaceful and hateful at the same time. If the fruit of the spirit were in a garden, patience and self-control would be the most difficult to cultivate.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5:25

So, if you are driving along and see a log cabin with a bunch of stuff on the front porch, a barefoot woman in a flower garden out front, and a huge pile of dirt in the back yard with trees lying all around be careful before you make a judgement.

She may be learning to walk by the Spirit in her barefeet.