Hurry Up, God!

Processing life–with the good, painful, and disappointing–is an annoyingly slow procedure at times. Although the growth process is always worthwhile, sometimes it takes me to frightening places where I feel unfamiliar emotions, think uncomfortable thoughts…and well, just plain hurt.

My stomach aches. My head throbs. My body gets tired. I find it takes courage to let myself experience these things, acknowledge my reality, and move beyond my conditioned attitudes and behavior–to GROW as a person–mother, wife, friend, writer, coach, business owner and child of God.

Although process isn’t always fun and I want God to hurry up sometimes, it helped me immensely when I realized that God could have sent His Son to accomplish His redemptive work during a weekend retreat. Perhaps then Jesus would have escaped much of the prolonged discomfort.

Instead God chose for Jesus to arrive as a baby, become a teen, and confront young adulthood. The faultless Son of God left perfection with His Father to face earth’s reality: sickness, death, abuse, and unbelief.

As I realized that God sanctions process, I began to relax and accept that progress takes time. And now as the years march by (hmmm, actually it feels more like they’re racing!) I want to remind myself again.

When I take substantial steps forward and then something happens to trigger old response strategies and I fall back, I have the option to pause where I am and begin again. Because God sanctions process. I love that. How about you?