What are we waiting for? Our phones ding with texts, ring with calls, and buzz when our favorite team makes a trade or cuts a player. Many times, in conversation, the person across from us might stop in the middle of a sentence to look down at their newest notification. There’s no reason to wait, we need to know what’s happening somewhere! Our society is no longer structured in a way that encourages the virtue of patience.

We live in constant frenetic activity. But then…a family member becomes gravely ill. We see them suffer and there is nothing we can do but stay by their side, either physically or in spirit, wanting them to stay with us as long as possible. And then again… a family member is pregnant and to cut the wait short would mean something is wrong. The wait indicates growth, development, protection, and maturity. With a dying kinsman we wait, while our heart is breaking. With a pregnancy, we wait for life to unfurl to its fullest; we wait in anxious, eager anticipation of the arrival.

For our children, the development of skills over time is one way to learn patience. A kid doesn’t catch a baseball the first time he or she picks up a glove. The basics of the game, throwing and catching, are skills learned only over time. It may take a good long period of scales and repetition of newly learned notes for a child to be able to eventually play a song on the piano. The philosopher, Aristotle, said, “Patience is bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” Patience is not tapping fingers and looking at the clock so much as it is being engaged in one activity while waiting for another development at the same time.

And, of course, one of the only efficient ways to teach our children patience is to practice it. The next time you are in a waiting room at a doctor’s office for yet another checkup, leave your phone alone and take note of the things you begin to think about. Could be a song, a prayer or a memory. Could be thinking through a worrisome situation, a little meditation on forgiveness, a few mental reminders of tasks to be accomplished or the recognition of some things for which you are most grateful. And you do all this while waiting… yes, waiting, ever so patiently.

Written by The Good & True Staff

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