“Love can only be patient when it is first grateful for what is right now.”
It is true: I can love only when I am thankful for the now. When I embrace the present as a gift, a time and place not to be afraid of, to resist and fight, but a place to welcome as a wise bestowment from a kind Father.
Love cannot be patient when I am discontented or my fears (of failure, of bedlam) drive me to micromanage. Patience can only grow in the soil of gratitude. Lack gratitude, then lack patience, and, ultimately, lack love.
Henri Nouwen suggests that
“[t]he word patience means willingness to stay where we are and live out the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will
manifest itself to us.”
Patience is only a possibility when we mindfully invite this moment to rest here, and not hurry on. And we can, because we know that this moment brings us something, something yet hidden, that will reveal itself as a gift for which we can give thanks.
Nouwen offers that “patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present….”
I reflect on and concur: Patient pilgrims linger in the present, thankful for what is. Patient people dare to accept people where they are, grateful for who they are now, appreciative of works of art not yet finished but still deeply loved. Aren't we all just that?
Deep breathe. Love is patient. And it can only be patient when it is first grateful, receiving the present as a present... grace.
isn't this awesome! it came from the same blog as the last one HOLY EXPERIENCE..
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