Many times my Christian friends have warned me "never pray for patience"!!
Why? It's believed that God will give you all sorts of circumstances in which your patience will be tested!
So I've prayed many times for God to fill me with more of His love, so I may pour it out on my family and friends. I am not always known for my ability to be patient. Some former students would disagree as many have kindly told me how patient they think I was. Well it's easy to be patient with adult students who pay a lot of money to be taught a skill, to have their art honed. That share a passion to learn and develop.
It took me a long time to get my brain wrapped around being a stay at home Mom. I love my boys so much and enjoy being home with them. I feel I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
Patience has not been my finest virtue to say the least.
I have come to realize my loss of patience and how I choose to deal with it stems from how I feel my children's behaviour reflects my parenting skills. I sometimes feel that if my children misbehave in public, everyone is looking at me like I'm the worst parent in the world. Of course when I see others in the same position, I just tend to feel bad for the parent and relate to their pain...lol
Children, babies, toddlers, do not act with perfect manners and grace in public at some magical age. They need to be taught. That requires taking said little ones out in public. Possibly for a short trip to pick up milk from the grocery store, or a family restaurant where they actually have to sit. I chose the golden arches myself for that lesson. Of course they don't have to sit when they have an indoor play place so my first challenge a couple of years ago was to have them sit in a booth, eat their lunch and help clean up the table, then and only then could they play in the play area. This worked quite well. At the ages of 4 and 6 they are pretty good in restaurants. They don't need to run around but we are still working on sitting still but it is certainly progress. I've taken them with me to the grocery store and when my 4 year old decides to blow a fit, I stop, drop everything get eye level with him and inform him we don't act like that in public. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I try to stay calm. Not worry about what every one else is thinking about my parenting skills but give the attention that's needed to my children at the time and calmly redirect them.
This is not always the case at home. I at times raise my voice out of sheer frustration because I've had to repeat myself for the 5th time. This is the case this morning. I hate being late! I hate the threat of being late! Nothing will put me into panic mode faster than that. My voice gets louder, I get frantic and tempers start to flare. Rush out of the house, get the boys strapped into their seats and pull out of the garage. This morning that's what happened. What happened after was different. I pulled to one side of the alley and parked. I apologized to my kids and tried to explain why "mommy gets so frustrated" That there were times that anger is justified. Frustration is understandable. It's how we choose to deal with these times that is important. I explained that when I start "freaking out" and start panicking and raising my voice it's just wrong. That Jesus is still trying to work with me on that but I'm not exactly helping Him out on that very well. We had a good little discussion.
I got home after dropping them off and looked at the stack of books on parenting that I have, heaved a heavy sigh and walked out of the room. Prayed. God fill me with your love. Fill me with your grace. I know you are in control of all things, so there is no reason to be anxious for anything. Thank you for the precious gifts you have given to me in the forms of my sons. Help me to show them how much I love them. Help me to be a better mom. He led me to pick up my bible. Right to a very familiar passage.
I Corinthians 13:4-8a
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, Love never fails;
I needed that. In my pursuit to draw closer to God I am reminded that God IS love. It may seem like a basic concept but it is one I need to remind myself of daily. To be able to show HIS love to my family, to my friends I can't forget to spend time with HIM. He wants to teach me. To teach us of His love for us but it requires a commitement of time. I want to hear his voice. It takes getting into His word. It's funny how calm and at peace I feel right at this moment. Funny how that happens when you just sit quietly and spend time with Him.
Thanks for the date God. I'm better prepared to pick up my boys now...oops... like right now!!
