worth waiting for

Sometimes I wish that letters were the only mode of correspondence, that the internet did not exist or that I had to take a horse-drawn carriage if I wanted to go to the grocery store. Sometimes I wish this, but when I think about what a world like that actually looks like I quickly change my mind.

Yesterday morning at 6 AM I got in the car with two of my friends and we drove to Williamsburg for an all day Kappa Kappa Gamma conference. After a day filled with speakers, presentations and discussion we all sat down for a nice dinner. Though the day had been fun and informative, it had no doubt been a long day and I was anxiously waiting for the end of the dinner and our queue that we could get back in the car and head home.

Somewhere between my impatience and third bite of cheesecake, an elegant older woman was welcomed to the podium and began to read from a letter that she received from the U.S. Navy. In June of 1966, her husband, a Navy pilot, had been shot down in Vietnam. They knew that he had ejected from his plane but his whereabouts and condition were unknown. Left with the grief and anxiety of not knowing what had become of her husband, she had no choice but to wait.

6 1/2 years later, he came home.

As I sat there listening to this woman's incredible story of patience, of faith and of love I began to think about anything in my life that I have ever waited 6 1/2 years for. Or better, (since at this point that is about 33% of my life...) anything that I have ever been willing to wait that long for.

I was thinking for a long time.

Whenever our computers take 5 seconds to open a page instead of 1, our cell phones can't find reception or that thing we have been waiting and hoping for for so long hasn't happened yet, we get upset and we want to fix it or leave it. And if we choose to fix it, we want it fixed now. Listening to this woman talk about her 6 1/2 years of waiting I couldn't help but think how impatient I can be; how ridiculous my frustrations are once they are put into perspective. She waited 6 1/2 years for a day to come that she was not promised, that she didn't know would ever come but could only hope for.

I don't know about you but every once in awhile I need to step back and take a breath. I need to find patience instead of frustration and I need to realize that there are so many things that are worth waiting for.