Patience

Proverbs 14:1 “The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.”

In an effort to “build” up and gain a little order and peace in my home I have decided to look at myself and see what I need to work on personally. I have been really studying up on patience because I have none therefore, I need to do my homework in order to fully understand what it is I seek and how to capture it. Patience takes faith and practice. I’m not much on biting my tongue or taking a deep breath and counting to ten before reacting but I am working on it. This is one of my new favorite quotes and it is really helping me embrace this character flaw of mine “few of us do patience well and none of us do it naturally.” SO I am not alone with this – WHEW!! It takes work but as all things that do take work it will be worth it. BECAUSE:

1. Patience stops problems in their tracks--praying it will stop or at least slow down my 2 year old;

2. Patience fosters peace and quiet--I love quiet;

3. Patience demonstrates love-one can never show too much love;

4. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm (a/k/a temper tantrums);

5. Patience brings rewards-we call rewards prizes in my house-we like prizes; AND

6. Practicing patience teaches patience.

What I’ve learned is we aren’t born with patience we work for patience and we are rewarded. I am trying to raise good boys who will one day be great men, loving husbands & wonderful fathers. In my quest for patience my biggest hope is that they will learn from my patience and be slow to respond with love, peace, knowledge and wisdom rather than to quickly react and later regret it.