Great things Take Time

I often find myself rushed. One might say I'm impatient; maybe I am. I say I'm excited and love seeing ideas come to fruition. 

But really - I can just be plain impatient. 

It's taken a lot of time to put true patience into practice, to realize that it's alright to move slowly where it matters or sometimes, to simply wait. 

One thing that's taught me this is drying time. Yes, you heard me right. There's nothing that makes a person want to move quickly quite like a mixed media artist with a great vision. I love the style that I do - it's fun, it's interesting and it keeps my curiosity piqued. Rarely bored, I love the opportunity to switch between methods and techniques, tools and media like a mad scientist on a ground-breaking experiment. 

But in all the layers I add there are a lot of ingredients and they often need adequate time to settle. 

If I don't let them be, they can smudge and smear, bleed into the next thing I try to put in place, the plan will become a big mess and totally not what it was meant to be at all. I've made those mistakes before - I've tried to rush time... with a heat gun. The outcome wasn't pretty. 

Did you know that a heat gun, while great, can make more of a mess with some things? It can make pastes bubble, it can reactivate and loosen glues - so what happens in your rush is true upheaval. Things that have settled turn into a globular mess, the pieces laid down become loosened and insecure. 

Several creative disasters have taught me this the hard way. 

In most instances, it's best to let things settle naturally. And friend, I know that wait time can be pure agony. 

It's so hard to wait for things to move, it's hard to watch during the wait and wonder, "Why am I not doing anything? Why is this taking so long?" and it's really hard to do this and not wonder if it was all a bad idea and if maybe you should just give up. 

I wanted to encourage you today, with this piece, that great things do take time. Your dreams, your aspirations, your purpose, your plans - they all take time. While we would have things done in an instant if we could, it simply cannot be because there is so much involved weighing on the rightness of what's to come that we simply must wait. 

Don't give up. It isn't a mistake. Hold out a little while longer and I am almost certain you will see the  beautiful and miraculous unfold before you. 

See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 

James 5:7