My husband, Alan, and I have the fun and privilege of meeting twice a month with some very dear friends, Tom & Marla. They came into our lives at just the right time. Have you ever had a friend show up in your life like that? Just the right person at just the right time? What a priceless gift.
We were over at Tom & Marla’s home a couple of days ago and Marla shared this amazing quote from a book entitled, Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits by Michael G. Harter.
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually–let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that His hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ
I have found this to be true over the course of my life. God is making me into the image of Jesus day by day. All of the various seasons and stages of my life have ebbed and flowed, and it is after the fact that I can look back and see the miracle that He has accomplished “IN me.” It is these “IN me” places that bear fruit “through me” for the benefit of others. It is important to keep this order in mind.
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