Last year, on the first of the new year, I wrote a post focusing on one word. That world was patience. It was my goal to be more patient...with others and with myself. I think I was from time to time, but I know I wasn't at other moments. If I learned anything from my desire to be more patient it is that it's not a virtue that is simply given to me. Instead, it's earned, and that earning isn't necessarily what I had envisioned. For instance, I'd like to be more patient when I receive a phone call and all four kids need me at that very moment. In asking for patience, I wouldn't necessarily just float about the room tending to each one's needs while carrying on that important phone conversion. Instead, I was tossing packs of fruit snacks at those crying for something to eat, picking up another crying for me and saying more "oh yeahs" than I really wanted to to that person on the other end of the line, all the while feeling the heat rise as I wish my kids new how to act when I was talking to someone else and wish that someone else had called at a better time. Patient? Not really. Yet, with each of those little moments, I did realize something...that growing in that virtue, and any virtue for that matter, takes work. I could get off the phone, explain to the kids old enough to understand that I needed them to take care of themselves for a minute while I was talking to someone else and myself be more generous with the time it took to actually be an active part of that conversation. But when the next phone call came, it was typically more of the same.
*I just re-read this post and feel like I should explain. In no way am I wanting people to not call me! I love hearing from family and friends. I just wish I was better at sometimes handling the screaming in the background, ha!
It's a little thing, yes. I have a whole host of other areas where my patience is lacking. I'm not going to say that I'm even halfway where I want to be in that department, but I have grown in one area of it...recognizing I have a long way to go and taking tiny steps, day by day, to get there.
So for this year, it's something new I'd like to work on...
From worrying what others think...
From thinking I need so many things that I truly just want...
From wondering if I'll be good enough at whatever I'm doing...
From wanting constant affirmation...
From the desire to do it all...
From the fear of loss...
From the unrest that comes with worry...
From the need for acknowledgement...
From the tendency to have unrealistic expectations...
From the constant concern of failure...
From the need to know...
From the materialism...
From the drive to constantly be busy...
Detachment.
There are too many things in my mind that drive me from the one thing that truly matters...that I am His, and to Him alone am I accountable. From everything that keeps me from that, I want to learn to detach. It's a long road ahead.
