Patience. I think that is the most hated word in the English language. How we hate having to wait for anything. Folks my age grew up in the age of convenience. From "Hamburger Helper" to ATMs to remote controls for everything, we want it NOW. Maybe even yesterday.
And the thing is we expect the same thing from God. We say our prayers then expect the answer. Now. It is like placing our order in the drive-thru lane and having it ready for us when we drive a few feet to the window. We want God to act just as promptly and we begin to lose faith when we have to wait.
I remember how frustrated I became sitting on the edge of my hospital bed waiting for someone to come in and help me go to the bathroom. I've already talked about having to trust the people that were charged with my care. But now my focus was turned away from others and toward myself. I had to be patient with the healing process.
Remember my childhood nickname? Little Miss Me-Do. I haven't changed much. My stubborn self-reliance has only grown as I've gotten older. I'm fifty and single. I've never lived with anyone other than my immediate family. When I feel like getting up and going I get up and go. Now I can't. I can't even get out of bed and go to the bathroom alone.
The general rule that for every one day you spend down it takes three to recuperate. I was in Critical Care for 14 days, on a vent for ten. So as the general rule goes, it would take six weeks for me to recover from being down that long let alone for the damage H1N1 did to my body. I was going to have to be..... yes, I was going to have to be patient with my body and the healing process. Dang. I hate when that happens.
I recall so clearing telling Dr. Mahan that all I wanted to do was get up, drive to Jay-C and do my grocery shopping. I didn't have any ideas about climbing Mt. Everest or anything fancy. I just wanted to buy bread, eggs and salad greens. By the time I went to rehab I was doing okay with a walker. I could walk short distances without much trouble. After only a couple of days I was "independent on the unit" meaning that I could walk down the hall to dinner without assistance and go to the bathroom on my own. That was an exciting day.
Doesn't sound exciting? Well, three weeks earlier I was on a vent and not expected to live. Two weeks before I could barely hold a cup of water or feed myself. To be declared "independent" was music to Little Miss Me-Do's heart.
A little air was let out of my sails when I started trying to walk without the walker. First we tried a cane and then no support of any kind. It was so hard. My balance was off. My legs felt like lead. So much for heading to the grocery store!
I had to keep reminding myself that my recovery was a process. It would not happen over night. There would be times when it felt like I was headed backwards rather than forward. And I had to keep focused on how far I had come, from not being able to feed myself to walking 50 feet without assistance, from not being able to go to the bathroom without help to being independent on the unit. Process, not destination.
I needed help with this. I needed folks like my friend Jill who had been there so much to tell me what I went through those two weeks I was out of it. When I heard the stories of doctors and monitors and vents and comas, I realized just how far I had traveled on this journey. I had to see the big picture in order to appreciate the small victories.
The same is true with God. We see such a small part of a situation or an event, and usually we can only see how it is affecting us. But God sees the whole picture. God sees the short- and long-term consequences and how one action will affect many lives. Like the Stephen Curtis Chapman song says, "God is God and I am not; I can only see a part of the picture He's painting." God may need us to wait sometimes until a part of the solution is ready. The timing may be off. Someone else involved may need to grow a little. For whatever reason, God says, "I'm not saying 'no' to your prayer, but I need you to wait awhile. Be patient."
And so we wait. We might complain about it. A lot. We might get frustrated. But we wait. And while we wait we pray and we continue to move forward. And we accept help when we need it.
It has now been four months since I got sick, three since I came home. And guess what? I can get in my car and drive to Jay-C, and do all the grocery shopping I want any time I want. And the first time I did, it was worth the wait.
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