So I have never been big on patience. My Type A personality is a driving force in my life, and it is incredibly frustrating when I have to wait for the things I know oh-so-very certainly that I want.

The problem is, the things I am almost certain that I want, aren't always the things that I need.

I have always been an ambitious dreamer. At the age of 5, I told myself I was going to be a veterinarian (as most stuffed animal obsessed 5-year-old girls dream of). At the age of 8, I was obsessed with gymnastics, and after being glued to the TV during the 2004 Athens Olympics watching Carly Patterson be on top of the world, I was convinced I would grow up to become a world-class gymnast. At the age of 13, I told myself I was going to become an orthopedic surgeon (at the time, I probably had very little understanding of what this meant, but it sounded cool enough to do).

It's funny because little 5-year-old me could not WAIT to grow up. I was so impatient that by the age of 10, I was already dreaming of getting my license. Once I hit 16 and got my license, I was itching to hit that adulthood milestone of 18. Now here I am, 20 years old, wishing I could go back to the days of playing vet with my stuffed animals.

The grass isn't always greener, right?

The older I get, the more grateful I am that life is a process. It takes time. It is so easy to want to fast forward to a certain point in our life, but let's face it, without going through the moments and experiences leading up to that point, we wouldn't fully grasp the importance of these milestones.

I can't imagine what I would do if all my hopes and dreams were to come true right now, because who knows if those hopes and dreams are going to be the same once I experience more that life has to offer for me in the future?

I am grateful for patience. I'm grateful because whether it is one of your virtues, or you are like me, and it's not, it plays an important role in your life. I'm grateful that we don't just grow up when we think we ought to, that growing up is slow until you've hit the next milestone and it feels like it only took a matter of seconds to get there. Being patient in this slow, growing process allows you to learn and experience lessons that will be necessary in the long run.

I'm grateful for patience even though it's so hard. Sure, I dream about the day when I am in the career that I love, but first, I have to find out what that career is and how to excel at it. I dream about the day that I find my husband and start a family, but I have to be patient and wait for the man God has for me, and I still have so much more life to live before settling down.

I'm grateful for patience because it becomes more abundant as you grow older. I am no longer like my 12-year-old self-itching to hit that next milestone because I don't know what that next milestone is. College has taught me to stop rushing, to stop saying "I can't wait for...", because before you know it, you will be at that next milestone reminiscing on the good times you had when you were younger. As Andy Bernard said, "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." Too often we are so impatient to leap from milestone to milestone in our lives, that we forget to experience all the little moments in between that make up the bulk of our memories.

Patience is a virtue. It's a constant reminder that God's timing is perfect timing, that all good things come to those who wait, that wishing things would move faster only leaves wondering where the time has gone.

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" -Romans 12:12