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Patience and purpose
I’ve always heard the saying that patience is a virtue. While this is true, I’d personally never found myself willing, nor able, to display the characteristic very well in my life. Most often, things were supposed to go on my time and my sense of how it all should occur. I know that is not a very spiritual statement, but it is an honest one!
There had been a period of time where I was seeking employment and began to find the search exasperating. I didn’t want to just find any job, I wanted to find what I affectionately called a lifelihood, or a job that felt purposeful and fulfilling—a field of work where I was motivated by more than just a paycheck. As my search lingered on, my patience began to run out.
However, one day I reread something in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy which says: “Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear” (p. 506). For whatever reason, my attention became fixed on that paragraph, and I actually left the book open to that page on my coffee table for about two weeks and read it several times a day. It was as if I knew there was a profound lesson for me there.
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About the author
Joy Frawley lives in Traverse City, Michigan.
