August 6, 2019

Patience is one quality that I possess in a very small quantity. A year ago in February, I thought we would be on the road by April or May. It’s now August and we are still here. I think the best way to have patience is to keep busy. I’ve done pretty well at that. Our home never looked better. But along the way I discovered something else.

After doing all the work to put our house on the market, I realized that this would be the last time for a lot of things. And with that realization, I started to be more patient about how long it might take to get on the road. I started snapping pictures of the scenes outside my front window. I saw the sunlight on the distant hills and the clouds change shape and color. I saw amazing sunsets and sometimes early sunrises. I photographed the little house wren family that built a nest in our little bird house in the front yard. This would be the last spring that I would be able to observe them.

As I snapped photos here and there of things I loved about living here, I realized that I had so much to be grateful for. I never appreciated my daffodils, roses and lavender bushes so much. What else had I been missing over the years? I wondered.

Now that we are closer than ever to leaving, I also realize that there are people I might never see again in this life. Being impatient to leave, I didn’t realize that I would probably never see some of them again. We held a church service for the old folk at an assisted living home. These are dear people who smiled joyfully every time we arrived to sing hymns and talk about Jesus. I started to realize what it would mean for them to not have anything to look forward to every Sunday. My patience grew and sometimes my tears flowed with this realization. These last few weeks would be our last ones with these precious souls. We would probably never see them again once we are on the road. Being here all these months longer was a blessing to them and to us, and I didn’t even realize it. What other blessings did I miss?

Now I see that all the things that came in the way to prevent our leaving were blessings and not just lessons on patience. I still don’t have much patience, but I have a lot more beautiful memories because God made our departure take longer than I thought it would. I’ve had lots of time to say good-bye to this home that holds such fond memories. I have time to say good-bye to friends and family before I leave. What a blessing and what an awesome way to learn patience.

Categories: RV Travel