orthodoxgladness:

Patience is the most powerful medicine that treats severe and long-lasting misfortunes. Most of the troubles are only due to impatience. Great patience unravels the most convoluted and brings divine fruits: where you do not see any solution, God gives the best solution. – St. Paisios the Athonite

So often I want it my own way. With my own timing. I claim to want God and His gifts for me. But I really want for God to give me what I want. And to get it now. I want to bend the world around myself. To bend the will and timing of God to my whims.

To my sin.

But God gives me what I need. When I need it. The gentle word before the point of breaking. The smile from a loved one at the precipice of despair. A hand of salvation at the point of drowning.

The timing of God is perfect. My aversion to suffering is not. Yet, in that place between the inception of my pain and the action of God, exists a kiln of supernatural character. Where even the most obscene of sinners can be transformed into His image.