Patience

So Sunday in our class, Will Bridges (he and his wife Melodie have befriended me---great people!) talked/led a discussion about waiting. We've been studying from Genesis (which I enjoy....the initial meat of the OT), and Sunday it was all about waiting/having patience, etc. We talked about the usual scenarios of waiting in line, icky congested traffic on the interstates, etc. Several people mentioned waiting for the birth of their children, or girls waiting for that pretty engagement ring they've been wanting. You know...things that you are so anxious for but the waiting can be unbearable?! As people were throwing out different things I began to think for myself about what things I had to wait a long time for....like, graduation from optometry school or getting boards scores in the mail. All of mine were mostly school-related :) But then I also (as well as the rest of this week) have begun to think of other forms of waiting that I've really not even experienced in my short almost 25 year old life (my birthday is a month from today!). You know the milestones of my future that aren't even on my radar yet.....marriage, kids, etc. Plus, I began to think of how far I've come along with patience in general. Some people may not know it, but those who do (you know who you are....mom, jennifer, the rest of my family) can tell you that I'm not a very patient person. I'm laid back and easy going for the most part, but some things I've struggled to have patience with. Especially over the past couple of years. And it's not patience in every aspect of my life. It's random little things some times and then really big things other times. Jennifer (my sis-in-law and old optometry school roommate) could see my lack of patience on a daily basis during school, as well as with my personal relationships with different people. It took me a while to grasp and wrap my head around that 1)at whatever point in time I had no patience, that me being fidgety or complaining was not going to make it faster, easier, or better and 2)that I have absolutely 100% no control of some situations that test my patience. I found in my palm pilot a couple of scriptures that I had written a few years ago from James. I used to use it as a daily reminder to work on my patience.

James 1:2-3 Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
James 1:4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

I read these the other day and you know it's true. No matter what the scenario (good or bad---even though it's sometimes extremely hard to swallow/grasp) a testing of your faith gives you patience. Now, in my case it has had to be a lot of scenarios, but with each one I feel that I have had one chance to feel and experience patience. I can honestly say that I feel that I am a much more patient person than I was 2 years ago, even 6 months ago! God gives us what he knows we can handle (traumatic, minor, simple, hard, earth-shattering, etc) and by experiencing these things we learn to put faith in Him and be patient with Him, as well as with ourselves and our peers. Just thought I'd share my thoughts from the past few days :)