287 - Patience

It will take several weeks to two months to see if my new extremely expensive medicine will have any effect. While I’m waiting, I’m frustrated, a slacker. Breathing is a chore if I’m doing anything else. So I sit a lot, at the computer, at the kitchen table, counting “one, two, three, go…” I’ve only been taking these pills for one week.

Two Hundred Eighty-Seven

Patience

Soothe me in the long stretches, Time Keeper,
Add up the days and weeks with me;
I leave to You the steady counting,
Release me clock watching, calendar counting.

You teach us to number our days.
Yet attention to passing time brings frustration:
When will healing come? The next relief?
It is cool water before my thirst for wholeness.

I long for six-eight time, or a jazz waltz,
Not the endurance of my plodding steps;
I long for last week’s patience, last week’s courage,
Secure me, Holy One, in Your vision.