― 1 Corinthians 13: 4
That verse from Corinthians was one of the first things I thought about this morning, just before I realized, "I did what?! A blog... really?"
When my children were little, I used to tell them,
"Patience is waiting with a smile."
After all, if you are waiting in a bad mood, that is not exactly
patience, right?
As I think about kindness, it occurs to me that patience
has a lot to do with being kind. In a
recent Oprah newsletter, columnist Leigh Newman writes that an "enormously
kind" thing that you can say to someone is "Take your time. I'm not
in a rush." Think grocery store
cashier line, restaurant, wherever.
Because life -- and notably information -- seems to be
coming at us at breakneck speed, we feel that we need to live fast. Moms are notorious for this: rush, rush, rushing...
pick-ups, drop-offs, errands, trying to work, paint, write (ha!) ... So what happens when we decide to show -- to
give -- patience?
I decided today that patience would be our way to show
kindness. My children and I talked about
it a lot and I think they all made a super effort to be patient, especially at
an event this evening when adult conversations went on way past any reasonable
bedtime. I also noticed that we continue
to get better about holding doors, letting others go first, etc.
But as I focused on patience, I realized that one of the
greatest gifts we can give our children is to be patient with them. (I didn't say it was easy...) And so earlier today, as I sat with one of my children, who
was deciding whether a tummy ache would keep us from attending an event that my
husband wanted us to go to, I thought about what an extraordinary gift it was
-- to just be with my child, to not think of hurrying, to wait and let it
be. That might have made it easier to be
patient with myself a while later as I drove to the event and got lost in a
university maze of buildings and parking lots.
Fortunately, I had no idea (and neither did my husband who was waiting
for us) that he would be getting a lovely award at this event or being patient
with the children and myself might have been impossible.
Today I learned that patience is an incredible
gift. And as with most gifts, the giving
benefits not only the recipient, but also the giver.
P.S. I asked my
husband whether I could mention his award on my blog and he said no, so I won't
tell you that he was given the "Heart of Gold" award by a wonderful
group of young people whom he has been helping.
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