Finding Color in the Gray

Don’t ask God for more patience; because if you do, it means He’ll give you more opportunities to learn it. Hmph. If this is God’s method of character development, He’s never been a mother.

We think of patience in quantitative terms. We look at other moms and think, “Wow. She has so much patience.” We consider it to be something that can be developed. We “exercise” patience and equate it to preparing for a marathon. If we run diligently everyday, then eventually we could run forever.

I’m convinced that every mom believes that if we had more patience, then we would be perfect mothers. We wouldn’t snap at our kids. We wouldn’t give up in our attempts to keep a clean home. We would be consistent in our expectations for our children. We wouldn’t be completely worn out at the end of the day if we simply had more patience.

But when a girlfriend asked me this weekend, “What should we do when we run out of patience?” something struck me. I realized that when I’m “out of patience” with my kids, it’s not that the well is dry. The “out of ” in the phrase is not referring to what I have in me; it refers to what state I am in. I am not in a frame of mind to be patient any longer. It’s not that I’m tapped out; it’s that I can’t hold my tongue anymore. If anything, I’ve run out of strength to control myself.

For me, being patient is more of a state of mind. It’s a choice to stop and control myself. It’s what my brain is doing while my children are whining.

These are completely unedited, raw thoughts. I’m still mulling it over. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are. Do you think patience can be measured, or is it a state of mind?