I have learned that with children you have to have extreme patience. Nothing is ever easy, nothing is ever simple and nothing turns out the way you think it will. No matter what I plan, something always happens to change the course of my plan. Well something just hit me in the midst of my selfishness and frustration.
I am not being patient and that means I am not showing my precious little children love. In 1 Corinthians 13 1-13 it says if I can do amazing things and have knowledge and faith, but have not love I AM NOTHING! “If I give all I posses to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. LOVE is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails!….And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE.”
When I am impatient, I am not loving my children. When I get angry if they do not do what I ask right away, I am not loving them. If I am not kind even when they disobey or talk back, I am not loving them. When I am more worried about what I need to get done than my children’s hearts, then I am not loving them. When I do not encourage truth no matter what the consequences, I am not showing them love. When I am not protecting them spiritually and emotionally, I am not loving them. When I do not trust them first and just assume they did something wrong, I am not loving them. When I am not always hoping for them, I am not loving them. When I give up on them because they keep doing it over and over, I am not loving them. When I do not persevere everyday to be the mother God has called me to be to them, I am not loving them.
Love is not just something we feel towards our children and others, but something we do each minute of everyday. Love is not easy. It is a dying to oneself to be Christ to someone else. That is exactly why Jesus Christ died for us….to show us his ultimate love for us. The only way we can share the love Jesus gave to us freely is to deny our selfish tendencies so that we may show true love towards others. We must decrease so that he may increase.
