When Patience plays hide-and-seek… and wins.

As of now, we are officially on a three-week break from school… However, this time certainly didn’t come easy! Since March, things at school have been… well, pretty chaotic. We lost two teachers the first week of March, one unannounced, and unfortunately we have only found one replacement. This situation left Autumn filling in the role of 5/6/7^th grade English/Language Arts & Creative Arts teacher, with me hopping in during her observations, meetings, etc… For the last two weeks of the term, I was in the job full-time as Autumn had piles of paperwork to complete and close to 100 visitors pass through during that time. I am thankful that we have the ability to be flexible in situations like this, and that Autumn is willing to both be patient and to ask for help when she knows she needs it.

However, these two weeks were not a walk in the park… While I usually consider myself to be a patient person, there are times when this patience gets worn thing… Goes for a game of hide-and-seek, if you please. Usually, I win the game… But sometimes, Patience finds a really good hiding spot. This time around, it took me two weeks to find it… I could spot it from time to time, but it quickly ran and hid in a new spot whenever I caught a glance. That’s not the kind of person I want to be with these kids… That’s not what they deserve. But there’s only so many times I can say “If you sit in your seat and raise your hand quietly, then I can help you.”

Last night at Bible study, we were reading 2 Peter 1:5-8 and while I love what this passage has to say, it was also very convicting… “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these very qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

This isn’t just a one-time thing… We don’t just have self-control and call it good, and we don’t show knowledge once and then stop growing in it… These characteristics are supposed to be increasing in us all the time, regardless of the circumstances around us! And the last part, verse 8… These are what keeps us from being ineffective or unfruitful. I felt that those two weeks… I was not as effective or fruitful as I should be because I wasn’t willing to be diligent in supplementing my faith with my actions! I was short with kids, I yelled, I guilt-tripped, I took away privileges, I had heart-to-hearts with kids who wouldn’t listen… I was human. But we are called to be more than human… We are called to live in the image of Christ, the one who did no wrong and committed no sin. But the greatest part is that I am forgiven for that… Those sins are all laid down on the cross and finished… “It is finished,” as we chanted over and over again during my day subbing in 4^th grade on the Thursday before Easter.

I am grateful that even when I lose game after game of hide-and-seek with different virtues, Jesus always comes back and says “It’s ok… I love you.” I’m learning that it’s not the fact that it takes me a long time to “win”, but the fact that I kept playing the game that matters… What a beautiful thing to come to terms with.