It just takes longer

Things take longer than you think. My wife Terri is always telling me this. I sit down to the computer and think I've typed for 10 minutes and it turns out to be an hour. I tell her I'll be home in 20 and it's an hour. I'm optimistic I guess. As in I'd be done typing in 10 IF I could type or I'd be home IF there were no other cars on the road. Well, I can't and there are. Reality.
I built a deck this week. Tore the old one off and put a new and improved one back. Looking at it ( it was 10X12 ) I thought a day max. In.Out. Move on to the next thing, places to go, people to meet. Well, two days. I built it better than it was before, stronger, more bracing, epoxy coated fasteners, plastic wood, etc. It just took longer. I judged poorly how much time and effort was involved.
I remember painting some ones house and I miss-judged by DAYS how long it would take. After the fourth day the profit started to disappear and by the time I finished I think I was making $9 an hour. You can't run a business on $9 an hour. Agony. I can remember rolling paint on the wall and I was crying and thinking I was going to quit because I couldn't do it. How could I be so far off on my price and time estimate? Every time I look up or around and see how much more there was to do new waves of depression and tears would overwhelm me.
The cost of and education. That's what I tell myself when I encounter one of those jobs. I learn to look better. Anticipate potential problems. Realize I'm human with a life that gets in the way of work some time. Realize that I "can't type and there are other cars on the road". But sometimes I don't. I just go through emotional turmoil and whine but I don't look at what went wrong and how to fix it. I just cry. Sometimes I can be such a wuss.
I seem to go through a lot of hard times in my life and I complain, cry, blame, but rarely ask what I could do different. I don't always examine what God's doing in my life. Don't examine what I've done wrong. Just complain and say "why is this taking so long"? I an so immature for a man of 46.
Some things just take longer. God's molding me and making me into a good son, a man of integrity and character. Which I desperately want. It's just a work that sometimes takes a while. Sometimes much longer than I think. Is it because of me? Mostly. Lazy, poor decision making, etc.. Sometimes though, a hard time needs to take a long time. I don't understand this or God and His ways. I want to trust Him and believe He's got me in his hand. But sometimes I think He dropped me. I can be so faithless some times.
But He is faithful and kind. And I will get up tomorrow and do my best to follow and be like Him.