Patience is a Lost Virtue

For ye have need of patience, that,
after ye have done the will of God,
ye might receive the promise.

Hebrew 10:36

I seem to run out of patience a little too easily these days. I remember back to when I was a kid. My mom never yelled. Seriously, I can't recall a time when she raised her voice. She never seemed to "lose it". Of course, my sister and I didn't give her much cause to lose her temper or patience with us. I'm pretty sure we never smeared a tub of butter on the carpeting, buried her car keys in the sandbox, or finger painted with yogurt on the t.v. The past two weeks my children have been acting like little demons and not a day has gone by where I haven't lost my patience and yelled like a lunatic. I think the fine art of patience is disappearing.

In our world of instant gratification where microwave ovens enable us to put food on the table in mere minutes, and stores are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, we don't have to wait for much. When we want something, we no longer weigh the benefits against the cost and save our money until we can make the purchase. Charge cards let us get whatever we want, whenever we want it with little consideration to how we'll pay for it later.

The internet has given us many benefits (for example, we can read my blog :D). Kids no longer have to go to the library and use the card catalog to locate books and gather information for school reports. They can log on, and with a few quick clicks, have a wealth of information pertaining to their subject right at their fingertips. We don't have to wait until a favorite show comes on t.v. With hundreds of channels and innovations like TiVo, we can pretty much view whatever we want at any given time.

We get mad if it takes too long for our nail polish to dry or if the person in front of us at the drive-through places a large order making us wait another whole minute for our food. We get impatient when we're in a hurry and our kids insist we stop and look at every bug, flower, and piece of garbage they see on the sidewalk.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all these conveniences are bad. But, I believe, they do come with a price. I want my children to grow up to be patient individuals. I want them to know what it's like to work hard and save up for a car. I want them to be able to wait and weigh the pros and cons of a decision instead of jumping right in. I think the best way to teach this is to model it myself. Boy, do I have my work cut out for me!

OK enough of that lest I be accused of being :::gasp::: serious!

On a completely unrelated note, this is what I found in the shower this morning.

In case you can't tell - that's a bar of soap with a set of teeth marks in it. Mmmmm, nothing like a little Lever 2000 to start your day. "Lever 2000, for all your 2000 parts, including your stomach, small intestines, colon....."