Patience

Have you ever been baking one of your favorite treats and you kept checking the oven to see if the dessert was done yet?  I have.  It seemed like it took foeverrrrr for the treats to get done.  When baking something that is not sensitive to temperature change, motion, or me constantly opening and closing the oven door-that's not too big of a problem. However, when baking a cake, certain meats, delicate dishes and desserts, even the slightest change in temperature can ruin all of your hard work. In the end, your constant "checking" will leave you with a pile of yuck. We need to have patience and give our mini-projects, creations, and delicacies the time they need to become the deliciousness they were intended to be! 

The same is true for our families lives.  We often put effort into creating something amazing  at home; it might be a much needed change in our routines, a new eating habit, becoming more active, less micro-managing, or increasing loved ones independence and self-sufficiency... The problem comes in when we expect immediate results and start "checking" too soon.  When we do this, we can get frustrated, become impatient with ourselves and the ones we are trying to help, and then end up with that pile of yuck.  A more holistic approach might be to plan ahead, look at everyone's needs and abilities, and pace accordingly.  Just like going grocery shopping and/or cooking when you are hungry are HORRIBLE ideas, making family changes without having a clear road map-not such a good idea.  The key point on your road map and ingredient to any recipe is patience.  Some of our loves and often we ourselves, need more time to get where we need to be to make those long lasting changes that help us grow into better people.  Decadent brownies cannot be made in 15 minutes, they take time. Have patience, they are well worth the wait.