The Lord has been teaching me a valuable lesson about patience. As I get older and have more on my plate, I find it’s a trait I’m starting to lose grip on. Especially since it’s one of God’s fruits of the Spirit.
First, I’ll start with, what is patience? According to Google, patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.
The other night while driving home from work on my late day, I was challenged by what I call the “Punishment Light”. But, first I should start with what happened before that. I was driving home from a place that I was not too familiar with. It was late, it was dark, all that not-so-fun stuff. As usual, people were driving my maniacs, which threw me off and forced me into taking the wrong exit which then brought me to the Punishment Light. Y’all, I will not get over the fact that I waited at that light for 4 WHOLE songs. That’s nearly 15 minutes sitting at a red light at night. I started to panic, yell, and scream and ask why I was being tested today.
After getting all my anger out, I said screw this and made a right turn on red just to make a U-turn and find out that I’m now stuck at another red. The light I had waited at for nearly 15 minutes, was GREEN. If I had just taken a deep breath instead of that impulsive right turn, the light would have turned green in no time.
The second challenge was another day last week when I was coming home from work during rush hour. I could see the traffic backed up for miles going down my normal route. I’d already had a frustrating day and being in traffic would have made it worse, I thought. Those of you who know me already know I absolutely hate driving and would rather be a passenger princess forever. So, again, I made a rash decision to take an exit and find my way home some other way.
Boy was I in for a treat, I got stuck in even more traffic trying to get through 2 different street fairs. With street fairs come detours, and multiple people everywhere. I thought I was in a fever dream. Then, on top of going through ALL that, my GPS brought me right back to the original route I started on. I think staying on the first route would have gotten me home way faster. It took me like an hour and 10 minutes to get home when usually it would take me 35/40 minutes. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to take deep breaths in situations where I feel I’m losing patience and it helps because it gives me a quick second to consciously think.
What are some ways you practice patience? Let me know in the comments below!
P.S. The Punishment Light is the name of one of my all time favorite Weeds episodes where Nancy sits at an insanely long light during her terrble day. The episode then proceeds to end with one of the best songs ever, Cotton by The Mountain Goats.
As always, thanks so much for reading! Questions, comments, and feedback are always welcome. If you enjoyed this post, please comment, like and share! Make sure to check out my Instagram; @tianiangela_ and my latest video on YouTube💋
Tiani Angela 