LESSON #2: Communication is an exercise in patience
When I originally sat down to write this blog, I made the mistake of sitting down next to James.
My NLBC blog followers (and family) know it is a rare occasion for James to be sighted without at least one writing tablet – and usually, he’ll have two.
He was sitting at the dining table with them, right beside my computer.
The second I sat down, he was shoving one tablet towards me, and pointing to a phrase written on the other.
Although there was no pen in his hand at the time, there was one sitting right in front of him.
It was only a matter of time before he handed that to me, too.
I said, “James, I was going to write a blog. Can I do that?” as I opened up my laptop.
His answer was to set the tablet he had been trying to hand me on my keyboard and start pointing to a phrase – “Valley Metro City Bus.”
It didn’t take me long to figure out he wanted me to look up photos of buses on the internet.
Did I look them up?
No.
Instead, I grabbed the pen from in front of him and started to write on the tablet – favorite phrases, and phrases we’d never written.
I got into the stash of colored gel pens in my purse, and started writing in different colors.
I don’t know how much he loved that part, but he didn’t take the tablet away from me, either.
He seemed content to sit with me for awhile and let me write and talk to him as I did so.
Based on that, I have to assume he was okay with it.
Eighteen months ago, I couldn’t have done that – been patient enough to sit with James and try to figure out what he wanted.
Some of that has been a huge heart change, but it is just as much about what I have learned about communication in the last year.
Language barriers and ignorance of social customs weren’t the only headaches created in that area.
Along the way, I had to learn how to communicate with my teammates.
It’s true.
While we all spoke the same language, each of us had a different way of using it.
Different mannerisms, different body language, and different ways of interpreting it what it meant.
By the end of our race, communication came a lot more easily, but I sometimes wonder how I survived the first few months with how poor my skills that area were walking in.
Only by the grace of God, which produced a LOT of patience (in me and my teammates both).
I do think there’s a “bigger picture” lesson in this blog as well, about how we often communicate with God-
But that is a whole blog in and of itself, and one that I will attempt to tackle soon.
