Ann

Here's something to keep in mind as you go through this hectic day. The person who benefits most from your patience is you.

Yes, you'll come across many people who are rude, annoying and self-centered. But does it really serve any positive purpose for you to sink to their depths of negativity?

Instead, take the opportunity to rise to a higher level of peacefulness and understanding. Take the opportunity to practice and strengthen your patience.

Patience and understanding will take you to places where anger, frustration, confusion and anxiety can never reach. Patience and understanding put you in a position of real power and effectiveness.

Practice patience, and you will build real strength. Live with patience and understanding, and a whole new world of valuable opportunities will open up to you.

There's nothing to be gained by reacting to rudeness and anxiety with more rudeness and anxiety of your own making. Respond instead with patience and understanding, and you'll make your world a much better place.

-- Ralph Marston

historyteach

Good one, Ann!
Not only do we make the world a better place, but, we get to keep our own serenity as well.

Shalom!

Ann

This reading is speaking to me today, patience has always been a struggle for this codie redhead, a lesson that I think I am finally learning but still struggle with sometimes...okay...often.

Like the reading suggests, my knee jerk reaction is exactly that...a negative reaction, rather than a well thought out positive action. Those who struggle with this like I do will recognize the "fight or flight" adrenaline attack that happens when we are anxious or treated rudely.

The lesson that I must remember is to take a deep breath, a giant step back and allow the other person's bad behaviour to belong to them. And then I need to wait until my thoughts are clear before I decide whether to respond with words unaffected by emotion or simply let it go.

And when I am anxious or worried about something, I have learned to be patient and know that God is looking after things and that I will get my answers exactly when I am supposed to and not a minute before. God does not like to be rushed...He told me so.

Just for today, I will remember that patience is a virtue that can be learned with practice and that just because I was not born with the "patient" gene, it doesn't mean I cannot become a reasonable patient person with time.

Hugs
Ann