Love is patient.

I had the opportunity to spend the evening with some friends from our old church a couple nights ago. Facebook has proven invaluable for keeping in touch with everyone but in no way does that make up for the physical loss of being in their presence on a consistent basis.

On top of that, this particular church from our past is very healthy for the most part (I say "for the most part" because, even though I never really saw a dark "underbelly," nothing's perfect supposedly ;) and quite secure and sound financially, administratively, etc.

When I believed God was truly calling us to be Catholic, I balked. I attended Mass and the first thing I said when I got home was, "Nope, that's not it, honey. I'm Protestant all the way." I wanted my happy place. My friendships. My comfort zone.

God's word reveals Himself to us as all these qualities we are focusing on these next several weeks~~and God is patient. God waited patiently for us but He did not stick around for us in that other church. For us, the pillar of fire, so to speak, had moved. We may have wanted to stay in our former church but He had already gone somewhere else and was patiently waiting for us there. We couldn't deny it anymore. We followed Him over there and knew it was where He wanted us, but I have found it hard to be patient with this process at times.

Being Catholic is not the problem. In fact, it is a great homecoming, a relief, a gift to perpetually and eternally open~~I am so happy with and thankful for that part. But it is also challenging to be in an entirely new community of believers and patiently wait for relationships to grow. It cannot be forced, in spite of me being a generally gregarious person.

Another major change for us is the structure of the Catholic Church. When we arrived, the priest of the last ten years at our parish was on his way to a new position and the new priest, an entirely different type of person, arrived. Except, in the Catholic Church, when you have been a priest for 25 years, you take a sabbatical. There are no "ifs, ands, or buts" about it. It's a time for rejuvenation, reflection, and so on, and our priest's 25 year anniversary happened about 6 months after he arrived at our parish.

So he is gone now and we have a couple new priests handling everything, and in another month and a half, one of them will leave and a new one might arrive but no one really knows who. All this is happening in the middle of some serious financial difficulties for our parish and, while there is leadership (one of the priests is a clear administrator and is amply handling all aspects of parish life), if feels like there isn't. It's just to be expected after this much change and transition~~emotionally, we are experiencing impermanence which will not be resolved for quite awhile.

But this brings me to my point, which is that there is, in spite of all this, a huge amount of grace being poured into the process. The people of the parish do not have a lot of control over who's at the helm. This is much different from where we came from as Protestants, where the church is a self-contained organization that doesn't have to answer to a higher level of authority. And trust me~~I can see the allure of that and the benefits and all that good stuff.

But rocking along on the waves of our current situation fills me with gratitude because I see how God is still in charge of it all. Patience is a big part of this process. I am humbled by my human longings for resolution, stability, and the straightforward~~and yet in no way does God rely on these qualities in order to do His work in us. He is incredibly patient with us~~and this process is giving me an opportunity to practice being patient with Him.

I am starting to see more clearly how being patient is a way of proving "I love You."