impatience and trust

Since 1517, according to etymonline.com, the word patience has had the meaning "constancy in effort." Since 1985, I have not been very good at that.
I thought I would hear back from the organization in Colombia last week. I tried not to hope too much that I would, but am frustrated at the difficulty of communication across miles and cultures. I don't like to wait.
While awaiting their response, upon which I feel the direction of my future heavily rests, my mind has begun to race again. For months, while I tried to contact them to no avail, contemplated if I was serious about working with them, and then filled out the lengthy application, my tendency to plan a thousand different paths for my life dissipated. Now it is returning.
Like I talked about in the last post, I've taken the risk and offered myself and now I am hanging here, waiting to see if they want me. My initial peace about waiting is wearing thin. The planner in me is inducing mini freak-outs about what I'm going to do with the next months of my life.

So I need some reminders that I am not the one in charge here, that I am in good hands:
"...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6)
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)
"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21, italics mine... it's sort of a mantra for me)

I also look back over the past years to examples of God's goodness and provision, reminders that He walks before me and behind me, that I need to trust in Him and not in any other person or thing. And I have good friends who encourage me in this learning to wait on the Lord. My parents, pointing to the classic "But they that wait upon the LORD will renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:31), and my roomate's note left for me on the counter, that is now taped to my mirror: "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matthew 6:34).

It is still my hope to hear from Colombia soon, to be accepted, to be able to start planning and raising money and feel a little bit of direction, but if they answer me with a "no" or "not now," then I trust in the bigger plan, the one that is immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine. My love for others and for God is growing, and my interests of ways to get involved and serve are, too. I am excited to see what the Lord makes of my life.
"But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." (Romans 8:25)