Time Limit

I think sometimes that people are brave to hope.  Because hope is hard, and hope is foolish: probably the only thing worse is not hoping for the good thing you want or need.

But sometimes we are not being brave.  We are trying to be controlling, trying to get credit (even to ourselves) for doing the right thing, the sacrificial thing.  I think to myself, "Six months is all I can handle," or "If it's been a year, and nothing has changed, it never will..." They're lies.  As if things never happen slowly.  As if God doesn't wait His purposes for His due time.  As if God can't sustain me another six months or another year for as many of those as He wills.

Then God reminds me that I am not lord of my own times; my days are in His hands, and I don't get to decide how long before I give up on Him working.  He can release me from a hope.  He can change my heart.  But I cannot determine that I have done my time.  Love hopes all things, and love doesn't quit.