Time is a funny thing. At one moment, it flies past at breakneck speed. The next, it creeps along slower than a slug. And often, in a moment briefer than a blink, life flips the switch between the two.
Today held one such switch. A usual Monday around these parts, I woke earlier than I preferred to ready my household for a full day ahead. First get the kids to school then commute to my office for a long day’s workload before an evening of sports, meetings, and possibly – hopefully – sleep. A large mug of dark roast into the day, messages began appearing in my inbox, messages that stopped me in my tracks and brought tears to my eyes.
Congrats on your work anniversary.
You see, its been four years now since I began working for the American Board of Pediatrics. Four years comprised of long days and overflowing weeks and months quickly bleeding into nearly half a decade of employment for the stay-at-home pastor’s wife turned working single mama; far more than hours clocked and commuted, far richer than all the gallons of coffee consumed.
Four years ago my life was in wreckage. Camelot had crumbled and I could barely recognize myself amidst the rubble’s haze. Everything I’d sworn would never happen in my life now dictated the day-to-day. It was there, smack in the middle of the shadows of dead dreams, God began weaving pain allowed into provision and scars into a redeeming story still in the making. There, God began turning bereavement into a bestowed blessing, one that not only provided daily needs but in fact began planting seeds of new dreams.
It did not happen overnight. Indeed, it took weeks and months and years of healing and grieving, of working and learning, of rising early and staying up long past the sun’s setting, to arrive at this working mama’s fourth employment anniversary.
So, as I respond to congratulatory messages with gratitude, I’m found humbled to my core. Today’s familiar blessings would have seemed beyond far fetched four years ago. Now, they mark my day-to-day as new seasons have begun unfolding with sparks of fresh dreams lighting up the corners of this mending heart.
As my favorite quote by C.S. Lewis well states: “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
Today’s switch finds me reflecting on the truth of these words, wondering what unseen gifts might lie in store in the days and years to come. To say I’m grateful seems hardly adequate enough.
A Life Of Patience 