Transferred Blog--"Some Things Require A Lot Of Patience"

I am not a mother and therefore cannot say for sure but I sometimes think that moms and dads are the ones who really understand the concept of patience. A child can be trying and really test a parent’s patience. I know that because I was one a long time ago.

I worked very hard in school. The problem was one that started in the first grade. I was in two different schools during my first year. The first school taught us by sight and the second taught us by sound. Now that was confusing to a little girl trying to learn words and learning how to read. Some time later I was in the small one room school I have mentioned before. We did not get the education that most larger schools gave. My dad picked up the slack this time and started helping me with arithmetic. I was really bad. I am sure it took every ounce of dad’s patience during this process. Fractions, division, multiplication---oh my! it still makes my head spin to think of it. This is really true. I had to learn my multiplication tables TWICE. That is about as strange as having to learn to ride a bike twice. Dad stuck with me demonstrating a lot of patience while I struggled with learning math. Dad did not have much education but he could compete with anyone in math. With a lot of love and time I finally got it.

In order to keep this blog short, I will just say that there are numerous other times that mom and dad had patience with this child of theirs.

I want to tell you that my husband teased my dad about patience. His line to dad was “Jerome, you must have a lot of patience because you sure haven’t used any of them.”

Well, I know Dad had enough patience to teach me math when my teacher did not have time to spend with one child. Now the funny part of all of this is—I grew up to be a banker. A little country girl that struggled with math could have the job she wanted because her dad had the patience and did not give up on her.

OMG, I can almost see my dad smiling down from heaven saying “that’s my girl.”

I will leave with one last thought about patience. It is found in:
Galatians 5:22
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness"