Patience 101: Another Confession

One more week... that short yet painstakingly long to wait. ~ mlca

Oh dear! retaking patience 101... Honestly, I’m no expert when it comes to patience... I fail most of the time. Regardless of the many forms of it...like waiting for your turn in the lonnnnnnnngggggggg queue coz the other end is slowpoke, waiting for your order coz  the cashier tries to multitask, waiting for students to submit their requirement coz they have that harum-scarum attitude and you are beating the deadline for the submission of grades, or waiting for my husband to come home especially, since it takes him 4 hours to travel home,… those sorts of waiting-- not just waiting for trivial things to go by… what peeves me and completely blows my “good-natured tolerance” off is when you set a date and your date (my spouse for that matter) arrives 40 minutes late…and come to think of it that it is a weekly thingy. There is no room to overlook, right? Yeah, this confession is something that I am not proud of…

Yet, I am just confronted with this one again… This patience thing. Ok, lemme give you a background of what is going on. Just this breakfast, I tried to persuade my hubby to stay home and take a leave from work…by the way, it has been 3 long months that he reports to Davao, 6 days a week… He is only home for a day…and come to think of it that there are 4 of us competing for his time and attention--- 3 kids and me. Like last week and weeks before that… we just could not get enough, and yesterday was no exception. Now back to that pleading, his not-so-cold-response (coz there is a hint in his voice that he is sorry that he is not able to grant my wish) is “just hang on sweetie, one more week and I’m home for good”…

That appears to be good news but this interior monologue echoes like an annoying, out-of-tune percussion instrument “One more week... that short yet painstakingly long to wait.” I irk in my thought because I am not good in waiting. But of course I can’t throw tantrums over it…not verbally of course--- but my heart revolts on the idea of waiting for a week.

So my hubby bade his goodbye… then I went off for my quiet time (again, this happened earlier)and this is not the usual routine  since we normally start with our devotion before breakfast, but today is one of those rare exception coz he overslept the reason he panicked and had a quick breakfast so he could catch up the early bus to Davao.

Anyway, returning to my devotion time… God is so quick to admonish me of my “unbecoming”… He gently brings me to this verse “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Galatians 5:22-26”

I am probably…or absolutely, being propelled by the flesh…whining over something that I have no control of and so picayune… should I choose to manipulate, it will not bring glory to God. Plus, complaints do not bring good results…and that the best thing that I can do is to look at the positive side of it…that after this week… my love is home at last. We have already hurdled 3 months by the grace of God… what harm can a week more do to us? I certainly am shamefaced for my misconduct. I said sorry for that… saying “ooops” could be translated that you are not remorseful of doing it (again)… I ended my devotion praying that apart from the ability to wait, May God give me the grace to keep the right attitude while waiting… Ability is erratic and undependable at times coz that ability to wait will falter because I am finite and I am not sovereign in any of my circumstance/s… and that in everything I need His grace to go through life and continue the journey. 

In general, when we acknowledge God as the Sovereign Lord and that He is in control… we can endure even the most provoking and unwanted stop over in our journey including the unnecessary delays in life.