Peace and Patience

Two things I typically don't have a lot of (or, for peace, something I rarely allow myself to feel...).

I've been thinking, and with hope comes peace, right? With faith too. If you have hope and faith in something or someone, you aren't constantly worried about it or scared it will fail on you.

So why am I always worried about one thing or another? What does this say about my faith and my hope...?

I don't really know how to grow my faith, or be sure that I really have a hope in something with all of me. But I suppose that that's where God comes in- He can do the things I can't do.

My lack of peace:  do I really believe that no matter what happens, that God is still good and still cares for me deeply and wants to pursue and love me? Do I truly believe He can sustain me no matter the circumstances?

My lack of patience:  do I really trust that His plans are greater than mine- and do I really think He's going to make it happen? Or do I want to hurry it up so I can make sure that everything's okay, so that just in case it's not, I can salvage something and fix my life back up?

Wow. I really do doubt.
But to know that so much good can come out of tragedy, if that's what ever becomes a part of my life:

when chance lit the forest on fire, and leveled all we'd
come to love and admire, up through the black floor
green stems grew up higher, and from that day we knew
that flowers would bloom
- Forest Fire, Covenhoven

Because music hits me in such deep ways, I believe that God really does bring songs into my life that help me to learn, grow, and be comforted. He's done it so many times before that I can never believe that it "just happens."

Anyways, this summer I'm really going to work on patience. I'm always in a hurry to make everything happen just the way I want it to be, but DUH that's not the way life goes. Patience in relationships, patience in knowing exactly what next spring will look like, patience in finding jobs for this autumn and spring, patience for all the exact details that I freak out about.

I was going to say, well, I've got my whole life ahead of me to live and figure myself out...but we are not guaranteed one more breath. I sure am thankful for each one that comes. So, all I can do is live each day like it's my last, in loving everyone to the fullest extent. That's going to require a lot of change in my life. I really do put my needs and wants in front of other people's. I care about my grades sometimes more than my relationships. And if there's anything I regret, it's not cultivating friendships more. It's isolating myself because I'm scared, shutting people out because it's hard to open up when there's so much of a mess inside. I try not to regret anything in my life, but this is one of two things I do regret, I think.

Peace and patience, my friends. The road to two fruits of the spirit. Here we go!

Peace & Blessings, y'all.