The first words I spoke today were words of apology. It turns out impatience has a way of revealing what we trust, and what we don’t.
Several times a week I take a train for my ballroom dance lessons. It’s a 75-minute ride and, truthfully, a bit of an obstacle course: car to parking garage, 220 stairs up to the station, train ride, another 220 stairs on the other end, then a taxi or Uber to the studio. If everything lines up perfectly, I even arrive early enough to slip into a yoga class to warm up before dancing.
On good days, the whole thing runs like clockwork. Last week was not one of those days.
I arrived at the station already running late only to discover that my ticket purchase had never gone through. Instead of breezing through the platform, I had to go to the desk to buy one in person. That required presenting a driver’s license, no photos accepted.
Of course, I did not have my license with me. The attendant was kind but firm. She suggested using the automated ticket machine, which thankfully did not require identification. Unfortunately, the machine appeared to be operating at a speed normally reserved for geological change.
Meanwhile, the minutes to departure were ticking down.
Ticket finally in hand, I raced up the 220 stairs to the platform only to discover that the security screening machine, where all bags must pass through, was temporarily down. Four minutes until the train departed. I found myself hovering nearby, “encouraging” the guard to move things along.
“Relax,” he said calmly. “You’re going to make the train.”
But at that moment, relaxing was not among my stronger spiritual disciplines.
Which brings me to this morning. I walked into the station for the first time since that episode and went straight to the attendant.
“I’m sorry I was impatient with you last week,” I said. “I was worried I’d miss the train.”
She smiled broadly and waved it off. “That’s okay,” she said. “You just really wanted to make that train.”
And there it was—grace, in its simplest form.
For the record, I did make the train that day, which makes me wonder why I didn’t trust that it might all work out in the first place. Impatience is often just a polite way of saying we don’t trust the timing of things.
It’s a useful reminder for other areas of life too—especially the moments when I ask God for help and become quietly convinced He is not moving nearly fast enough for my timetable. Lessons like this seem to appear more often in the second half of life. They are small reminders that navigating midlife transitions with grace may simply mean loosening our grip on urgency and learning to trust a little more.
Sometimes the train is already on its way.
And sometimes living with purpose is nothing more complicated than trusting the timing.
