Patience...

Well, let's be honest here... I feel fortunate (or maybe its more like "they" should feel fortunate) that I didn't actually kill any jr. high kids this week. Ok, ok, I'm not a violent person, I promise! There were several times though when I wanted to hide myself in a closet and just let them run amuck :/ We have only been in school 1 month and it has been a very rough start. I think I've given out more lunch detentions and trash duties in this last month than the last two years combined! This week our high school went on retreat and with them most of the teachers, this left me with 7 middle school classes to teach each day...I'm pretty sure that is past the legal limit! Sure enough by Friday afternoon, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...and actually did both.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids...And, sometimes they are so sweet and funny but other times they push me so far I didn't even know that realm of impatience (that's Christianese for anger) existed.

Ironically (By God's design and the leading of His Holy Spirit), a good friend and I prayed for just that earlier this week, for His heart for our kids, for patience and love not just in our hearts but evidenced in our actions. Sadly, I think all I did was demonstrate that I don't actually have any patience at all. I read 1 Corinthians 13 somewhere mid-week and tried so hard to insert my name where it says "love" but when it came down to it, it went something like this..."Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8...Jen is not patient, nor kind, she is rude and always insists on her own way, she is irritable and resentful, she refuses to bear anything, believes the worst....

What to make of all this? Well first, if you pray for patience know that God WILL give you opportunities to grow in that area, He is faithful and will gladly help us grow in our character, especially when we ask! Reading the above paragraphs may sound pretty hopeless....But, God.... I love those two words! I fail, over and over again, like Paul, I do the things I don't want to do and dont do the things I do want to do. But hopeless, never....not with Jesus. I rejoice because the Holy Spirit is able and willing to convict me of my sin and show me how only God is able to overcome it, but not only that, He already has. He is able to give me a heart of flesh for a heart of stone, He is able to bridle my tongue and my heart, He is able to grow in me a gentle, loving patience for His kids, He is able to conform me into the image of His Son. And just as the Lord doesn't walk away from us, I am committed to my kids.... I won't lock myself in another room so that I become inaccessible, by His grace we'll walk through this process of refinement together. And so, I thankfully press on and hope...

"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me." Philippians 3:12