P- is for Patience

I think many people myself included struggle with patience.
Patience is a skill that is sought after and only attained by an awful lot of diligence and perseverance. I know for myself that this week I really noticed myself struggling with the 'dignity of a person'. The respect each of us deserves by right of our humanity. I work at a day-care as many of you know, and I often tell people who wonder how I do it that my little co-workers are people too. Equal and worthy of my utmost respect and care, they deserve it.

Admittedly that is difficult, sometimes you just want to hurry a long the twenty-minute story about oranges, that so-and-so has been going on about. However--I finally found a solution to the frustration I was feeling, and the impatience that would leap to my tongue.

I would breathe and think to myself--this is a child of God. God knew them before they were born, knew their likes and dislikes, He knew THEM. He breathed life into their soul--God is testing me and teaching me RIGHT now. And I'd make eye-contact with that child-again, at one point I got very emotional while doing this because they looked so earnest and so joyful that I was giving them attention. And I'd read something recently that struck me like a thunderbolt like God was speaking in my ear "I am everywhere--and in everyone". So when I want to rage, or shout, or feel especially impatient or exasperated. I now try to count down from 10 and remember that everyone I meet harbors Jesus in them. And if I wouldn't say, whatever is about to come out of my mouth to, the Lord. Or if I wouldn't act a certain way if it were God. I shouldn't do it to another person. No matter how much they might 'deserve it'.

Not that I don't still struggle with this! It's a hard battle waged every day amongnst my knee-high friends. Although I do find this among the 'Big' people too. On the side I also work at a couple other jobs, one of which is a stagehand position in which I work with interesting people from all over the globe at different places and stages in their life.

One struggle God put on my plate this week. Was a continual struggle with the patience and dignity this time not with a child but with an adult. Which is far harder, I was working with an elderly man who wasn't all there.

It was hard not to get frustrated when he'd say things that didn't make sense, or did something on set incorrectly or told you a really long story that didn't make sense--or kept back talking you. And the rest of my crew were griping and complaining about him. Walking away abruptly in the middle of his stories or pulling out their cellphones so as to ignore him. I couldn't bring myself to do this--I felt guilty and so ashamed at my frustration and anger. I offered all of it up to God because again, the moment I made eye-contact with this elderly man. All I could see was the loneliness the--I just need someone to listen. My heart broke a little bit. I felt pulled by God to listen, it seriously felt as though God were whispering in my ear. "Look at me, this is the face of Jesus, I am here too."

I was just struck, I couldn't look away or be knowingly rude to this man. And I challenge my readers if you're out their to try that this week. To look at the faces of everyone you meet and to remember that they are children of God and that Jesus resides in them too. You'll see a difference in the way you treat them, I guarantee it.

"For to love another person, is to see the face of God" - Les Miserables
"Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth" - Mathew 5:5 (The Beatitudes)