HopeFul Reflections

Oh my spirit, how it has been tested to its limits. I lack the vocabulary and strength in speech to describe my feelings adequately. I am not tasked with great trial and tribulations, but rather more modest challenges. However, please consider I am but after all, only one man. Weak as I am, this is all I can handle. When work demands all of me, when my family requests my strength, and when my only sources of worldly strength leave me, I look to the future. When shall it rescue me?

I am very familiar with having my patience tested. After writing dramatically above, I’ll use a more lighthearted example now. I tutor children in reading in math. It’s quite fulfilling, but it can be very draining at times when the children lack discipline. However, how can I fault them for being children. Nonetheless, I’m often frustrated by the fact that these children do not already operate the way I do. My issue is not only my impatience. My issue is my lack of presence.

When I become frustrated I inadvertently wish to travel to a time when all is well and I do not have to deal with the tutoring challenges I face now. My issue that I do not appreciate this present moment for what it is. Of course I want the child to learn the lesson, but all things happen in their time. When I seek to move quickly and only focus on objective results I miss the child’s stories. I miss the delightful little observations only they can make. I tried illustrating an example to a child and it involved Spiderman saving a kitten from a tree. The child focused on the kitten and asked me why a kitten would need saving if kittens always land on their feet. I’ll admit I wasn’t too sure it was in danger. I assumed the height of the tree might be an issue, but I honestly wasn’t sure. It was comical and yet an example of the child’s exercise in mental gymnastics.

Sometimes the issue with patience may just be perspective. We seek more than what we are given at the moment or we do not truly see what is in front of us.

The verse below should help us:

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. -Mathew 6:34

And when we focus on today let us focus not only on our desires. God did not make our lives in accordance with our wills, but His own. Therefore, let us appreciate all that is in front of us. Let us appreciate it whether it be a joyous story told by a child or a grueling challenge.

-JKG