Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”

-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

We all want to stand on our own two feet, physically, emotionally, and financially.  At times, we may feel impatient with how long that actually takes.  We may want to reach the Omega point now.  And yet, it is in the work of preparation that we strengthen ourselves to bear the weight, growing our branches to bear the fruit of our labor.

Think about little children. Remember when you brought your baby home for the first time?  I wrapped Sashenka in a pink blanket with ruffles on the edges, put her on my bed, and just gazed at her for a while.  What a miracle.  I can’t believe it!  Contrast that with a little over a year later when she cruised around everywhere, standing up and holding on to furniture until one day, she took her first step during play time.  I was lucky to see it.  You watch in slow motion, and in your head the unsure step sounds as loud as a tyrannosaurus stomp.  And then you clap and cheer!  Again, you can’t believe it!  Why (given how much practice went into them) are we still surprised by these little milestone miracles?  They amaze us.  It seems like it just happened—she just started to walk!  And yet, thirteen months of practice led her to that victory.

Mitya is going through the process now.  I remember putting him in his bassinet, a piece of furniture that only works because the baby still can’t roll over or pull up on the edges.  Several months later, I took him to a gym in Virginia and the employees called him Roly Poly because he would roll from one side of the rectangular room to the other and back.  He made a sport of if every time we visited.  I remember thinking, will he ever sit up?  And then he did.  It’s like seeing a baby morph from a crustacean to an otter, sitting up.  And then our otter becomes a little puppy stretching into downward dog and learning how to crawl.  My favorite is the all-business, head down, full-speed crawl.  I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m moving fast!

And the inner push to be better never ends, does it?  It beckons you to stand on your own.  Soon, Mitya pulled up on furniture and like a little chimp, walked around our room holding on to things and smiling broadly.  Maybe a baby orangutan.  I take our little dude by his hands and walk around with him, slowly or quickly, matching his speed.  And last week, I said to the kids, “Let’s pray that Mitya starts walking this week!” So we did.  And God decided to answer in the affirmative.  Mitya took his first step, again in a play area, moving toward me, taking three steps and then falling down.  Wondrous and pathetic at the same time.  He is not embarrassed by his instability.  No, he thinks he is on his way!  He even clapped for himself afterward. I salute his celebration of triumphs.

As parents, we get to watch this progression that strengthens the body for walking.  Your baby doesn’t immediately rise from a flat-on-her back to a “I’m standing, mom!” position.  She learns to roll over, spends time on her tummy, sits up only at six months, enjoys several months of downward dog and practice crawling, starts crawling like a baby explorer, then pulls up, cruises around, and takes that first courageous step forward. In each phase, the baby finds joy.

So in our own lives, spiritually, emotionally, financially—standing up on your own two feet is a process.  For us, it can be a frustrating one, especially when we fall face-down on a toy.  Ouch!  How embarrassing!  Can’t I just fast forward through all the work like in those FB cooking videos?  It’s not that I don’t want to put in the effort.  It’s just hard to handle the embarrassing instability in the meantime.  Let me run away to a cave somewhere so I can write a book and then emerge victorious with an incandescent finished product.  That’s how it’s done, buds.  Check this out!  But I have to flesh something out not in front of an adoring mom but in front of possible critics (not you, of course, but you get the sentiment).  I think that it is the “unfinished in front of the whole world” feeling that’s hard to support.  But God reminds me of two things here.  First, He IS a loving parent, an adoring parent.  He wants to support and encourage us all the way.  We can respond by trusting Him that we will get to our milestone. Second, we get to our destination united with others.  We don’t get there by ourselves.  To skip all the steps of getting there means skipping all the connections, all the opportunities for others to encourage us and for us to encourage them.

And what does the baby do if his initial effort did not achieve the desired result?  Get back up and keep trying.  He doesn’t say, well, I guess that’s it folks.  I tried.  Let me crawl slowly into the corner now.  How funny would that be?  Poor guy. No, he boldly tries again and again and again, with time proving to himself he can do it.  He can walk on his own.

So can we.  For now, we can savor the process that strengthens us.