It’s not always easy to be patient and endure every trial that life throws your way.
Especially in times of travel and in issues involving matters of the heart.
I recently went to Florida with my parents and my sister for a fun little end-of-summer vacay. It was a nice getaway filled with “wave diving,” Baywatch running, beach walks, soaking up the sun, dinners at 4 p.m. to beat the crowds, lazy movie nights on the couch, and cannonballs galore. It was exactly what my soul needed—rest and relaxation near the ocean with my people.
The day we left to head home to Texas, we had a 9:44 a.m. flight, and my dad likes to be early everywhere, so we left the place we stayed around 6 a.m. We returned the rental car and got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, so we breezed through security and went to sit at our gate.
Little did we know just how long we would be sitting there.
Mine and my sister’s phones both buzzed at the same time, and we looked down to see notifications that our flight was delayed. It was a minor annoyance, but I’ve flown enough to know that it happens sometimes. Looks like we had an extra hour to kill. But then the delays just kept coming. Before we knew it, our flight was going to take off much later than planned—as in FOUR HOURS later. Yes, I do realize that some people have flights delayed much longer or even canceled, but when you’re sitting at an airport hoping with everything in you to get home as soon as possible because you’re so exhausted and ready to be in the comforts of your own place, four hours seem like an actual eternity.
I felt pretty bad for the airport and airline employees. Disgruntled people tend to take out their frustrations about a situation on those who honestly have no control over that situation—and there were quite a few unhappy individuals who were supposed to be on our flight that day. I think many of them hastily changed flights, because ours ended up being rather empty.
When the plane finally took off a little after 2 p.m., my only option to make it through the flight with complete sanity was to watch a cheesy romcom, so I naturally went with Rebel Wilson’s smash hit Isn’t It Romantic? I’m honestly not sure that I actually liked the movie, but it killed enough time for us to get back to Dallas.
When we all piled into my brother-in-law’s car when he picked us up from the airport, it felt like the moment when you were a little kid and waited all December long for Christmas to roll around, and you struggled to fall asleep on Christmas Eve but then FINALLY woke up to Christmas Day—and the world felt incredibly normal and not as if you’d just waited for what felt like forever to be in that moment.
If we’re being completely honest here, no one really loves waiting (at least I haven’t met anyone who does, but if you do, I’d like to chat). Most of us have our own agendas and plans, and we like things to pan out the way we hope that they will. But that’s not reality. We can’t always control the situations around us, and sometimes we simply have to employ what’s known as patient endurance.
When I first heard that term, it didn’t make a ton of sense to me. If I’m having to endure something, I doubt I’m focusing much on being patient. But the more I reflected on what it really means, the more I wanted it to be something I’m able to practice and hone and model well for others.
A few years ago, I fell pretty hard for a guy who ended up leaving me brokenhearted. Throughout that entire time, I wrote down the Bible verse below on a sticky note and read it to myself at least once every day.
Patient endurance is what you need now so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that He has promised.
And I reminded myself to believe every single word of it.
I still have to remind myself of this often. It’s easy to get so caught up in everything around me and in the plans I think are best for myself that I forget that He has a much better plan than I do. After all, I had to learn patient endurance for four years of frustrations and seeking for meaning in a career path that wasn’t truly where I was meant to stay—and it led me back to where my heart has been all along.
And I’m currently still patiently enduring (well, I’m certainly trying to master that “patient” part of it) this whole singleness thing and also sometimes wondering if it’s a perpetual endurance I’ll need. Whether I get my Christmas morning/car ride back from the airport (a.k.a. THIS) or not, the patient endurance is still a necessary part of my story so that I keep trying to pursue the Lord’s will in my life. If living by faith means never having a love like Nathan’s and Haley’s (if you weren’t a One Tree Hill fan, that might mean zilch to you), then that’s OK. He’s still good, and I’m still His.
And that’s worth every single struggle and pain patient endurance has ever brought with it.
“And that’s worth every single struggle and pain patient endurance has ever brought with it.”
That is the key to the path of maturity.
Amen.