Each Wedding Anniversary I wondered, “Will this be the year he gets faster?”

My husband has never been one to get in a hurry. Not only does he move at a snail’s pace, but his spoken words are usually well rehearsed in his mind before they ever roll from his tongue. God placed within my home the greatest word picture that pierced my heart, 43 years later, like no other!

“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.” Psalm 40:1, NLT

Could waiting take 43 years? Could waiting for the Lord to help be Him changing MY speed instead of my original cry? Could waiting be the Lord instilling the fruit of PATIENCE into my life? Could waiting patiently be the speed AND fruit the Lord wanted my life to produce? Could it be that a lifetime is needed to learn such deep truths of Scripture? Could it be that the Lord knows best because He is the maker of it all? Could it be that the Creator of me knows it will take 43 years before I fall on my face in utter submission and acceptance of the man that I married?

Could it be I have now learned a little bit of what God’s speed must be as well?

The following is copied from Colleen Elisabeth Chao’s Instagram account:

We grow slowly, don’t we? We make progress one fumbling step at a time. And the God of eternity slows himself to our frail, finite pace—and walks with us. To change us. To transform us.
But we’re in a rush, aren’t we? We want quick fixes and instant rescues. (Please don’t leave us living in frailty, in mystery, in pain. Please come and make sense of this, make it all right. Turn it into something good NOW.) But Jesus uses tedium and trials over time to transform us. The big, beautiful story of the Bible is a gloriously slow one, an unhurried anthology of God loving and freeing his people over many years . . . decades . . . centuries . . . millennia.
Kosuke Koyama wrote,
“God walks ‘slowly’ because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is an inner speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It is ‘slow’ yet it is lord over all the other speeds since it is the speed of love. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, whether we are currently hit by storm or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore it is the speed the love of God walks.” (“Three Mile an Hour God: Biblical Reflections” [Orbis, 1979], 6-7.)
If you see anything good in me through this suffering journey, it’s only because Love has been walking with me at three miles an hour for one hour at a time, day after day, year after year, for four decades now. Jesus’ words and His presence have changed me—they continue to change me—me, who learns so slowly, who can be so stubborn and petty and faithless! If *I* can grow and change, anyone can. It’s as simple (and slow) as going to God again and again—day after day—to listen to his words, to talk with him, to trust him, to enjoy him.
He loves us so much. Oh, how he loves us! And he will complete the beautiful work he has begun in us. (Philippians 1:6-11; Psalm 63:3, 104:13) But it won’t happen overnight. So we can be gentle with ourselves and with each other as we continue to transform slowly in the presence of our Love this week. 🍁 One step at a time….

Thanks, Colleen, for allowing God to teach you and now to teach me!

All this time God had put within my home – my very own teacher (my partner in marriage) – to teach me about HIM: “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:9, NASB.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, PATIENCE…” Galatians 6:22.

June 26, 1981