There’s an age-old saying that says “patience is a virtue.” However, God skipped the boat with me on that front. Sometimes I can feel the frustration boiling up to where my lid could blow a hole through the roof. I know my voice can suddenly shoot up to screaming in a second. This has been a flaw of mine since I can remember.

Through all of this, God decided in His infinite wisdom that I could handle a blond hair, Caribbean blue-eyed beautiful little girl who happened to have severe classic autism. Are you thinking yet, “What in the world was God thinking?” If you aren’t that’s okay because I probably did it enough for all of us. Someone with little to no patience should never raise a child with autism, or at least that is what I thought. Yet, like usual, God knows more than I do (imagine that.) Because He gave Keith and I Mari, my patience slowly began to grow. Did it become spectacular over night? Yea right. Not even close. But it did grow.

I became better at seeing my frustration with Mari and knowing when to step back. Then Mari died. My beloved little girl. God was preparing me for the road that would lay ahead of me. On July 17, 2011, my niece Crysta and my nephew Trevin came out for a two-week visit. This was exactly one day after Mari’s three-year mark of being gone. Then Crysta left on my birthday and Athena flew out with both her and Trevin never going back to live with their mom or dad (my brother.) We were awarded full legal guardianship of both of them. Since being in our lives things have changed for Keith and I quite drastically – again. Both of them came from not the greatest background. There have been issues along the way which of course leads us right back to where I was with Mari and having so little patience but now we add in Keith as his all went away the day our daughter died as well.

We are good for each other. When one needs some time to cool down the other seems to have the patience needed and vice versa. Since the kids have been here, I’ve been able to better calm myself than in the past. I might start off yelling but I can calm myself down quicker. Also, I apologize to the kids if I do yell and tell them that they don’t deserve to be yelled at no matter what they have done. They can’t control my actions any more than I can control theirs.

So with writing it’s the same thing. We have to be patient. When the time comes to write we will write. When the time comes to submit to agents or publishing houses we will submit. We just have to be patient and wait for God to tell us the right time instead of trying to take control and learning the hard way to just wait.