Patience

Who said patience was a virtue?
Well patience is variously mentioned in the Bible as one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22,one of the gifts of the spirit in love in 1 Corinthians 13 and the letter of James Chapter 5 exhorts the brothers to be patient in waiting for the Lord. This is not an exhaustive list.
Patience is something that many of us is practising during this period of lockdown. Things take much longer than they used to. Planning for services, requires us to think outside the box. What worked in a Church setting has to be reimagined at home.
There may be people who find their patience sorely tested. Two weeks of going away on holiday with beloved family members, where sights can be visited, views appreciated and when food is freely available may be just about manageable in terms of being perfectly pleasant with each other.
However, the same two weeks, stuck at home with the same people, with the same four walls, the same view outside and food limitations may just about test the patience of a saint.
So, we look to rediscovering things. That may be as simple as decluttering, although there is nowhere to take it, but it does mean that you can actually seen the floor of the glory hole under the stairs. The items that were lost have been miraculously found and the board games that had been consigned to darkness suddenly seem a bit more interesting.
It may be a forgotten hobby. I had been meaning to play the ukulele which I’d taken with us on various house moves and never got around to learning – that’s on my to do list so I can keep up with my great niece aged 7.
In the back of a drawer, I found a bag of pebbles which we collected when we were in New Zealand. I intended to tumble them. Peter had already bought me the machine, obtained the various grades of grit for making everything smooth so on what passes for my day off, I decided to get stuck in.
Much was made of my endeavours, but the reality was more muted. Step one: take the tumbler out of the box. Step two: open the tumbler barrel. Step three: put in the required grit. Step four: pour in the stones and cover with water. Step five: put everything back together, plug in and set the speed and leave it on.
That was on Saturday morning. My aspiration was that I would have beautifully coloured gemstones which would adorn my office or provide gifts for the family by that evening. However, upon reading the instructions, it transpired that this was the first of three such procedures with the grit becoming finer as time went on. It also meant that it needed to be checked after ten to fourteen days for the best results. That meant waiting. That was not good.
Sometimes, and especially in these times, patience and waiting doesn’t always play to our strengths and yet to keep ourselves and others safe, we have to wait, we have to be patient until we are given further instructions.
In the meantime, we have to make the most of rediscovering what we might do, could do and will do.
I’ll keep you posted about the pebbles!!

Elaine