The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.
Ecclesiastes 7:8 (NIV)
Better at the End
The notary’s anteroom has chairs along one wall and a rubber plant somebody waters. The brother and sister have been in two of them since ten, with a folder he put together himself, and he’s been telling her since the parking lot that it’s the same as the last time.
She took a personal day for this. She drove up three hours last night, she’s due back at work in the morning, and she’d meant to spend the back half of the afternoon at the lake with a book. The whole reason for the trip is a signature that has to go on the form in front of somebody licensed to watch it. The clerk takes the folder in and brings it back out twenty minutes later. The property description is off by a lot number. He took it from the tax bill, and the bill lists two parcels.
He’s sure it’s the county. He tells the clerk he did this once before for their father’s place and nobody said a word about lot numbers then, and he says it with the patience of a man doing somebody a favor. His sister has her keys out. The clerk writes down a title company and a date three weeks from Tuesday.
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. The Teacher put that down after watching a great many matters go all the way out, and he came back from them preferring the day a thing is finished to the day it gets started.
Everything in that anteroom is still in the middle. The form goes back in the folder, and the matter that was supposed to close today sits where it sat at ten, minus a day of her leave. The Teacher says it from past the end of a thing, and nobody there has got that far. Patience is better than pride, and his sister has been patient since ten and has nothing to show for it.
The clerk comes back to the counter before they’re out the door. Somebody canceled, and she can do Friday at eight. Friday at eight is no good for anybody driving three hours south with work in the morning. He takes the card anyway, and his sister is already out at the car with the engine running, and she leaves the folder where it is. Neither of them says anything about the lot number the whole way down.
A Prayer to Remember
Lord, I’d rather be right at the start of a thing than patient all the way to the end of it, and I’ve had a reason ready every time. Put me back inside what I started. Make me somebody who can wait three weeks without turning the wait into a grievance, and let me be there on the day it closes.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
