Visit Bridget Chumbley’s site to read all the amazing entries into this week’s carnival, I thoroughly recommend it.
Here’s my offering:
Today’s carnival topic is: Patience.
I could tell you lots of stories about patience that my wife has told me. She’s a nurse, so she sees patience all the time.
Oh, wait, that’s patienTS not patienCE…..
That’s harder then….
They say patience is a virtue. By that reckoning I’m not very virtuous.
I’m pretty good at being patient with people outside of my immediate family, but with my wife and kids, I think my patience ran out a day or so after my first daughter was born – and has never returned!
That’s something I am incredibly ashamed about.
I’m sure God has me at home looking after my kids all day as a way of teaching me patience but I’m obviously a VERY slow learner!
One day I may actually know something about patience and so I’ll write about it from a position of understanding.
Right now though, I know I have patience away from my family but not WITH them – so I can’t profess to know or understand anything about the subject.
I wish I did. For my family’s sake and mine.
Patience is DEFINITELY something I need to learn!
Peter, a few posts today have talked about this very thing. How we have the LEAST patience with those we profess to love the MOST! I know it is true for me, and I wish (and pray) that it were different.
You aren't alone in this area for sure!
I have no idea what you're talking about…
(If only that were true.)
yep…i hear ya.
Patience ran out on all of us the day our first child was born.
The first step is always recognizing what you'd like to change. Then, you have to go slowly, very slowly. But even before that, something more fundamental has to occur. That something is related best in "Sacred Thresholds", in which the author Paula D'Arcy relates a conversation with Richard Rohr, who tells her: "Don't push the river . . . Don't get ahead of your soul. The goal isn't to get somewhere. The goal isn't about forcing something to happen. The goal is to be in harmony with the gifts that are already given. The goal is to fall in love with your life."
And Joyce Rupp offers this beautiful prayer: ". . . teach me how to lovingly welcome / the parts of myself that I do not want. / Draw me to your heart of mercy / as I learn from what I tend to reject. / Help me to change what I can / and to accept the sum of who I am. . . ."
He doesn't reject us because we are impatient.
Namaste.
I hear you too.
I have learned that my lack of patience with those I love always expresses itself in ways that reflect the 'lesser' me.
When I live up to my higher good, my patience reflects my love of all.
And that's always my goal — which I am patiently, quietly and lovingly working to express every day.
Be patient with myself and I become patience with my world — thanks for your honesty. It is a gift.
Louise
Yep! I totally hear you on this one …
If you had any doubt you were alone, doubt no longer. We’re all with you. I think though that it only looks like we have patience with other people, but our character is always revealed under pressure. Lord, help us develop in this area!
Ouch.
Nuff said.