The Lesson of Waiting

Through recent events (small ones, nothing big) I've realized that I can be rather impatient. Impatient to hear the whole long, detailed story. Impatient to be the next in line. Impatient to wait for a friend to finish one thing before I move on to the other. I was blessed by a friend and her toddler girl a couple of days ago who waited for me and my daughter to finish our lunch before moving on to the next thing. I would not really have thought anything of her going on ahead and taking her active little girl to do what she wanted while we finished our lunch, but she did not. She sat at our table and waited. She taught her daughter the value of waiting on friends, no matter how badly you wish to move on. As I said, I was blessed by it and realized how little it needed to affect me to wait on people. But what a big reward it might yield for my prideful soul. What it would teach Evy in the process. And how much it spoke to me of our friendship. Valuable lesson.
I have since tried to be more aware of this type of situation and the urge I feel to justify moving on...disengaging to get to the part that actually interests me. How egotistic! Then I take a deep breath, ask myself, "Does it really matter?" and remind myself of Philippians 2 to look to the interests of others. Sometimes I have to pray to allow God to do this in me when I really don't want to! I'm learning a lot and, hopefully, so is Evy!