The Law of Progress

My mother sent me this poem and I just had to post it, as it is very encouraging and so insightfully written.

Written By: Pierre Tellhard de Chardin

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 skp the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of 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 then 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 your Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you.
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.