I'm being redundant.
As you probably know, the word "patient" comes from the Latin root "pati", meaning "to suffer." Therefore, to be patient is to suffer. What affirming words for a mother.
We moms tend to suffer practice patience all day long. When you:
*change another diaper. Then another. Then another, even though you should have been out the door for that appointment ten minutes ago …
*pick up after a toddler's trail of destruction in the room (or many rooms) you cleaned just a half hour ago …
*mop up the second cup of spilled milk in fifteen minutes …
*give the potty training another valiant try …
*read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?, one more time, even though you are so exhausted you think (and wish) you could sleep like the dead …
*disentangle a tantruming two-year-old from a shopping cart and carry her from the store, even though you really, really need to get these errands done …
*call Poison control in a panic, because you're worried that the little guy just ate some hand sanitizer …
*say, for the 210th time, and as you are placing her in yet another time-out, "We do not bite!" …
*eat the remnants of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and call it lunch …
*fall into bed, are slack-jawed within ten minutes, and awakened ten minutes after that by a toddler crying for mommy, courtesy of a Disney-induced nightmare …
… then you are suffering. You are experiencing the passion (another word that comes from the same root) of your vocation. And God is drawing you closer to Him through it all. It's through patience, through our small daily sufferings, that we shed the skin of selfishness and emerge a new creation.
So, I want to take a minute to thank Him.
Thank you, Lord, for these simple, everyday opportunities to suffer, to be patient, and to grow in holiness — one diaper, one sandwich crust, one sleep-deprived night, one tantrum at a time.
And thank you, Lord, for this little tidbit, too: that only occasionally am I the one having the tantrum.
(This post also appears on my blog .)
