Wait! Don’t stop reading yet, even though my title may move you to that action.
If you are like me, patience and its twin, perseverance, are some of your least favorite topics. We’ve been told, “Don’t pray for patience, because you will have to learn it the hard way.” But whether we pray for patience or not, successful lives are full of waiting.
My mother used to say that a woman’s life, especially, is full of waiting. We wait for someone to love us and ask to marry us. We wait for the wedding. We wait to get pregnant and then wait for the baby to be born. Then our waiting really starts! We wait for him to walk, and talk, and learn to use the toilet. We wait for her to go to school, then college, then begin her adult life. The waiting never seems to end, though our endurance feels like it might.
As cross cultural workers we wait, too. We wait to be approved. We wait while raising our support. Then we wait to go to our assignment. Language training means more patient endurance. Then, when we finally get into the reality of our work, we wait for the fruit of our labors.
