Only because I am a mother who is long on love and, too often, far too short on patience, I’ve only had to ask it a couple of hundred times:
You only love as well as you embrace your inconveniences.
Why in the world does that “love chapter” in the old holy Book say that first: “Love is patient.“
Why is patience actually the very first qualifier of love?
I mean, why not first, “Love is gentle,” or “Love is tender?” Or, better yet (to my feeble mind), “Love is a flash of divine revelation, a supernatural infusing of the spirit of God.”
Love is all that, yes.
But first, of utmost importance – and yep, I’ll trust the order of the inspired sacred Word – love is patient. That means love is nitty gritty. Hard.
That is what I was thinking on midweek morning, as we poured pancake batter into the griddle on a wintry morning, back when our house was full of all half a dozen wild kids, all rowdy and loud, under the age of ten.
When you’re patient enough to embrace the moment – the moment opens up its arms and surprises you with a gift.
The youngest kid loomed dangerously close to the heat of the frying pan. A preschooler anxiously slops in more batter. A lanky kid flips a pancake prematurely, batter oozing, dripping. The very sensitive child bursts into tears that the pancake hearts are all smeared, the rings mashed. The Oldest, with egg poised to crack, asked if I want more?
More? More what? More of this careening ride, when I am about at the end of my rope? I sensed a howl (of laughter? Of pain?) surging too close to my lips.
The Spirit soothes, strokes gently at the frayed edges of the moment: “Love is patient.”
How can I be patient in the tipsiness of the chaos of the day? How can I be patient in the overwhelm of now, whatever “now” looks like? When the clock keeps ticking steadily on, and we just keep stumbling along and falling further behind, while everyone else is sailing on far ahead?
Deep breathe. Love is patient. And it strikes me, an epiphany over the fry of bubbling pancakes:
“Love can only be patient – if it’s first grateful enough to embrace what is right now.”
It is true: You only love as well as you embrace your inconveniences.
When I embrace all the inconveniences of the moment – instead of resisting them, fighting them, fearing the upheaval of them – and embrace whatever the moment holds as a gift from a loving Father – that’s when I actually love.
That’s always the challenge, to trust that there is treasure hiding in every single moment – and that if you’re patient enough to sit in the moment – the moment will turn and put the treasure in your open hand.
The reason love is first of all patient – is because it first has to slow down enough to embrace what is.
Henri Nouwen suggests that: “[t]he word patience means willingness to stay where we are, and live the situation out to the full, in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.”
When you’re patient enough to embrace the moment – the moment opens up its arms and surprises you with a gift.
Which is to say:
Every moment holds a gift – and if you’re patient enough to hold space for the moment and not rush on – you’ll get to hold its gift.
That’s always the challenge, to trust that there is treasure hiding in every single moment – and that if you’re patient enough to sit in the moment – the moment will turn and put the treasure in your open hand.
Nouwen offers that: “Patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present….”
The patient live in the present moment – and receive the present held in the moment.
It’s true:
The patient live in the present moment – and receive the present held in the moment.
Patient people dare to accept people where they are, grateful for who they are now, appreciative of works of art not yet finished but still deeply loved. Aren’t we all just that?
Deep breath. Love is patient.
And it can only be patient when it is first receives the fleeeting present as a present… grace.
How to be grateful when overwhelmed? I’m a slow study and still learning:
Love Trusts there are Actually few emergencies
Emergencies are wildfires, screeching sirens, and gaping wounds. In everyday life, we rarely experience emergencies.
“Waiting patiently…is the foundation of the spiritual life.”
~ Simone Weil
Then why do we need to holler, fly, rush off?
As Simone Weil writes, “Waiting patiently…is the foundation of the spiritual life.”
Really, what catastrophe will befall if we’re 5 minutes late or dinner is on the table 15 minutes after six?
Sure, you’re late and sweet girl can’t find her other shoe, or the soup needs seasoning and toddler wraps like vine up a parental leg, or a teenager is giving a slow blow by blow of some convo – and we get to take a deep breath. This really isn’t an emergency. Hold space for the moment and you’ll get to hold the gift that this moment holds.
Now is good.
Now is not an emergency to rip through, but a moment to embrace with gratitude.
Hold space for this moment and you’ll get to hold the gift that this moment holds.
Love Trusts there are Always gifts everywhere
But it’s easy to let fears grip tight right here under your own roof, because a lot is on the line in parenting, in familying, in relationships: Souls. Futures. Joy. And fear of failure at all these things that matter prods, pierces, weighs.
And when fears close in, impatience grows large.
When fears fill the room — there is no room for patience.
And don’t I know it:
If I fear that this moment actually holds that which is to my detriment, harmful, either currently, or for my envisioned future, then I am anything but grateful, anything but patient. Anything but loving.
When fear closes in, impatience grows large.
True to the flight or fight theory of response, my fears too often feed either anxious fleeing — or angry fighting.
I keep waking to this in my own life:
The more afraid I am, the harder it becomes to express gratitude, the harder it becomes to practice patience.
The harder it becomes to love.
But again and again: When you let the Voice of Love Himself embrace the fears – fears can melt away. What’s there to actually fear when God only gives good gifts — and if it doesn’t feel like a good gift yet, have patience — the gift is still a work-in-process and will be worked into good in the end.
In all kinds of ways, life and kids and time crushes in, and I can grin.
I think I get it, the order of love, the preeminence of patience.
Love is first patient.
Because Love first slows down enough to embrace the surprise of God in this moment.
* * *
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