Cultivating the Art of Patience

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Hi. I’m Demetria Zinga and I blog and podcast over at christianhomeschoolmoms.com. And today, I want to share with you some words of encouragement about having patience, cultivating the art of patience in your home. And so, as moms, we know how easy it is for us to become impatient. I do have a 14-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old, and they are complete opposites when it comes to personality. They are also just my pride and joy. I love them so much. But in parenting, there are moments. We have moments when we just have to really dig deep within and ask God for that extra boost of help that we need to be patient with our children.

So, I wanted to give you a couple of tips to help you to begin thinking along those lines of how to really be cultivating patience in your heart and your home. And the first thing is just to give them room, give your children room to not be perfect. And we all know that nobody’s perfect, and as parents, we aren’t either. So, our kids are going to make all kinds of mistakes. They are going to do all kinds of things that really, really grate on our nerves, and that is perfectly normal because that’s part of childhood and growing up. And so, we have to give them room to make a lot of mistakes. And as they’re getting older, it’s even tougher, I think, on moms, because we have to learn to let go, and that’s one thing that I’m working with right now with my teenager, who will be getting her driver’s permit really soon and driving. I’m learning to let go. I’m learning to be more patient as I come across those challenges, when it is tougher to be patient, because we just want things to go well for our children and we want to jump in and solve problems for them, but sometimes, we have to step back and let them make their own mistakes. So, we have to give our children room to not be perfect.

And secondly, being flexible is extraordinarily important in raising kids. We have to just kind of be able to roll with life, because life throws all kinds of curve balls at us, and sometimes, it’s not the perfection that we’re looking for. We’re wanting things to go a certain way, and sometimes, they just don’t. In fact, most of the time, they don’t, because that’s kind of the beauty of life. Variety is the spice of life and we’re going to get a lot of variety in our lives. So, if we learn to be flexible on the front end, it won’t be so hard to begin asking God to give us the grace we need to walk in patience.

And thirdly, just enjoying the journey. It’s super important to really begin to see that life, as we’re more flexible with life and we allow things to happen and allow our kids to make mistakes, that we begin to enjoy even those moments that are not so perfect and not so beautiful, that we can enjoy our lives, enjoy the moments, enjoy everything that we’ve been blessed with. Because even in the imperfections, there is beauty, and there is something good underneath what is lurking there, and that seemingly is just this horrible thing that’s happening, and nothing’s working out right. But underneath all of that, as they say, behind every cloud, there’s a silver lining. That saying really is true. And if we can just look past all of the things that are coming at us that we don’t like and realize that there’s something good behind it, even if we can’t see it right now, it’s going to be okay, and we should absolutely learn to enjoy the journey any way we can. So, if it means that we’re just going to just have ourselves a great big party in the middle of our dilemma, you know, however that is, whatever that means to you, then you need to do that. Just find your happy in any situation. And for me, that’s kind of finding a good book, tucking away, taking a nice, long bubble bath at the end of the day. That is my happy. I enjoy that. I enjoy getting by myself and just finding if I can find the time to do those things, and just sort of finding what makes me happy in the midst of life, because life will throw everything it can at you, but you have to be able to be flexible and enjoy the journey. We only have one life with our children, one opportunity to kind of get with the program as we’re raising our kids, and this is it. We don’t get another chance and they’re going to grow up really soon. So, if we can enjoy it, it’s all the better, right?

And that’s all I have for you. Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this podcast and to share some words of encouragement with you. Blessings. Bye-bye.

About Demetria