I want to solve it all right now.
I want to solve it yesterday, in fact.
But things take the time they take.
Sometimes that’s a few days.
Sometimes a few months.
Sometimes a few years or more.
Each time I get anxious about solving something right now, I try to remind myself of all the things that took a really long time… but still worked themselves out in the end.
Yesterday, a Facebook memory popped up of the day my oldest son first received his hearing aids. He was almost five years old. It took five years of questions, appointments, miscommunications, missed diagnoses to get to that moment in that chair when the aids turned on and his eyes lit up.
My son has like five dimples stationed all over his face, or at least he did then… and all of them were deep and prominent in his smile that day.
In year one, I didn’t know anything was wrong.
In year two, I hoped we would figure out some things quickly.
In year three, I got discouraged.
In year four, I got angry and determined.
But it was almost year five before I got real answers.
And they changed everything.
Things take the time they take.
I remind myself of that daily.
It doesn’t mean I don’t have to experience the hope, the disappointment, the fear, and the anger along the way.
It doesn’t mean I have to be any less determined to reach the goal or solve the problem.
But maybe it does mean that I should give myself and others a break on the journey.
I don’t know who else, like me, needs to read these words today, but here they are:
Things take the time they take.
Don’t give up.
