When you pray for patience God doesn’t give you patience, but rather opportunities to be patient. (Morgan Freeman as God in Evan Almighty)
You ever heard that one before? Yeah, me too. I have been told that if someone in front of you in traffic is going slower than molasses that you should think “This could be an angel protecting me from an accident up ahead”. It helps, sometimes. 🙂
As a part of my series “Making known God’s Goodness” I wanted to share a story that showed me sometimes delays really are God:
Nearly three years ago now I had a beautiful baby girl, Anna Elizabeth. After being sent to the hospital for induction, and then turned around twice in one week, we were finally induced. After nearly 30 hours of induction, and 10 centimeters, she would not drop. So, we had a c-section. After five days in the hospital, I was ready to go home. My doctor was scheduled to come into the hospital room that morning to release me. I had spoken to him on the phone, and the nurses assured me that as with my last child, he would come in early in the morning before his office hours, to release me.
My in-laws, who had been caring for my then 3-1/2 year old, came early to the hospital to help take us home. Several hours passed and the Dr. had not come in to release me yet. With my 3-1/2 year old fidgeting and bouncing, and I hormonal, in pain, and tired, wanting desperately to just get to my house, I was not happy! Finally after about 4 hours, my Dr. rushed in on his lunch break and released me in about 5 minutes. I was ticked! “Get me home, Get me home, Get me home!” I said to my poor husband. he quickly loaded our things and we headed home, finally.
My father-in-law had gone ahead of us and called us to let us know that there was a problem. Crap! Now what? There had been a tornado, and there were trees down in our yard.
When we arrived, 3 of our neighbors had trees in their homes (Two had to move out for 6 months and completely rebuild), our trees laid perfectly across our driveway. Nothing touched the house. We had no power, or anything. As we inspected the damage, we realized had we been released when we were supposed to have been, our car, my in-laws car, and my parents cars would have all been in the driveway at the time of the tornado. What’s more, we found out about a week later, our car insurance payment had not been called in. (cause we were a little busy in the hospital) Had we been home, our car would have been crushed and we would have had no car insurance.
Two weeks later my sister had her daughter, same hospital and same doctor. She was released early in the morning as planned. She told him he was early. He said “I always come in early to release patients.” She said “You didn’t with my sister.” And then she proceeded to tell him how he did not come in until late that day. He was perplexed as to what kept him from coming in early like he usually does.
Sometimes things go according to plan, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we get to know why. In this instance we saw that our frustration, and impatience, was due to God’s protection and provision.