By Hannah Dearth 
As a parent to growing young children, I hear a lot of repeated questions. Is dinner finished now? Are we there yet? When is it my turn?
We ask our children to practice patience in these small daily moments of waiting when we ourselves struggle to wait as adults. I can have a package delivered to my house the same day I order it. Heck, I can have my groceries or a coffee at my doorstep too. Everything that is marketed to me, everywhere I look, is a faster or easier way of doing something.
But the reality is we can’t always avoid waiting, and we shouldn’t. That’s why we are intentional in fostering the joy of delayed gratification with our children.
We know that sometimes the ever-growing options for speed and ease are a gift, but many of life’s blessings come from the process itself. The light in our oldest child’s eyes when the song they have been practicing on the piano for months is finally played through without a hitch. The giggles when the creation our 6-year-old had spent several hours knitting comes together. The pride of sharing a meal we took the time to chop and mix and bake together with our loved ones.
We hope that by living this way, when they get older, this waiting isn’t a burden to always be avoided. Rather, they find that the process of growing and doing is just as important. We can do hard things. We don’t have to avoid them. In fact, we can’t and we shouldn’t. There is so much to be learned about life and about ourselves not only in the days and weeks of waiting, but in seasons of waiting.
In our jobs, with our health, our homes, in our hearts . . . there is a lot of work we have to do daily and intentionally. These incremental choices matter even if sometimes mundane. It’s a gift to get to do most of this. And if we show our kids all of the ways it can be, and resist a little bit of the comfort quick-fixes we face, they will grow up to see it that way in a world that says now, bigger, better, faster. And you know what? I think they will be happier for it. There is beauty in the waiting.
by Christine Leeb 
by Lauren Eberspacher 
