Patience is a virtue….who hasn’t heard that before? I hear it all the
time, the problem I have with that statement is this….we don’t put it
into practice.
Everyone
wants things right now, ‘come on, get moving’ ‘can this line move any
slower?’ ‘what do you mean it will take that long?!’ These aren’t
actual quotes from anyone in particular, just things that anyone can
observe by going out into public for more than five minutes. Just
imagine what we could do as a collective people if we just had
patience. I’d be willing to bet our country wouldn’t be in the spot
it’s in if we had a little patience, but our society tells us to have
everything and to have it RIGHT NOW. We aren’t even able to be patient
with our fellow human beings. Its unfortunate to say the least.
Don’t
get me wrong, I’m not up on some soap box telling everyone they are
wrong while I’m the only one doing things right. I fail at this all the
time, but today I was able to put this virtue into practice and I
couldn’t have had a better day.
See, I’m a patient sitter at the
hospital, key word being PATIENT. It is a job where I literally sit and
watch a person between 4-12 hours a day. Well, I came into work and was
told that I was going to be sitting with a VERY agitated person.
Someone who has been known to yell and scream at people for 30 minutes
at a time, who throws things at people and cusses like a sailor. The
nurses wouldn’t even talk to her for more than a few minutes for fear
of how she might become. Imagine how I felt when told all of this at
the beginning of a 12 hour shift!
So I came in and got a report
from the out-going sitter….another bad night. When she woke up I
introduced myself, so far so good, she just went back to sleep. When
she woke up, I was surprised to find her mellow and seemingly happy.
Throughout the day we had multiple interactions and the funny part was,
she was never rude/nasty..to me at least, not once (sorry, no crazy
story here, I know you’re all very disappointed.) I really think that
it was because I was patient with her during our interactions.
Honestly, I believe she just wanted someone to listen to her and her
craziness and to just be nice to her. I was anxious about nothing, and
I didn’t have to do anything out of the ordinary for her to be nice to
me. Amazing concept huh?
Imagine if we could all be like this to each other all the time….one day….
Lets take a look at what the Bible has to say on the subject 🙂
Proverbs 15: 18
A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a PATIENT man calms a quarrel.
Ephesians 4: 2
Be completely humble and gentle; be PATIENT, bearing with one another in love.
1 Thessalonians 5: 14
And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, BE PATIENT WITH EVERYONE.
I know I won’t succeed all the time, but I will definitely strive to live this way.
Gods Blessings
