Ambling versus plodding.

I love my microwave as much as the next girl. And text messages. Instant gratification is a shiny thing. I have, on this very blog, bemoaned the time between setting out to acquire and the actual obtaining of a specific goal/item/event. The patient among us call this The Journey, just like that in italics. The rest of us call it plain old lag time.

There are entire categories of my life that fall into this position. And, probably sick to death of my moaning about the lag, God has decided it's high time I started seeing this as a journey... still can't work myself into italics, yet.

You see, I have a propensity to fixate on a specific mile-marker. Get a book published. Run two miles. And always, when I get to a specific point, I see more road ahead. I will have to publish another book, maybe win an award. I'll have to run three miles...or at least two and a half. Hmm, oddly journeyish. The end point is never the end point. This used to be daunting.

But now? It's kinda cool. It means that all this time between the goal and it's achievement is for a purpose. Valuable. And just coming to terms with that makes the experience so much richer.
I'm not one of those folks who has a great "I gave my dating life to the Lord, and the very next day at sunset, Prince Charming's white stallion galloped into view." But I do have days and days spent ambling along a path, hand in hand with my Dearest Jesus and he points out fabulous things, like flowers, and friends, and truths too big for me to find on my own.

And I know that when we get where we're headed, the scenery will be so much richer for having hiked there, one mile at a time.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I used to see between as a sort of purgatory to be survived. Or at the very least, a trial I had to withstand to prove how much I was willing to give up for this one thing.
But the truth is, this time is not meant to be painful and needn't be. It is only painful if I let my gaze wander too far ahead as I plod along and lose sight of the flowers.