The Refusal to Suffer

Lord God, the greatest temptation of our time,

this is the greatest sin of my days.

This impatience, is it really a refusal to suffer?

Then Patience is the converse: the willingness to suffer.

Please, do that in me. Don't I long to know You? I can wait....

I found this here and was immediately captivated by the message....because it is me. If ever there was an impatient being on this earth....it is me. Those comments in passing by strangers on streets, "You must have the patience of a saint!!!!" with well rehearsed reply, "No, I probably have much less than you do" is no small understatement in the realities of everyday life.

The greatest temptation of our time is impatience, in its full, original meaning: refusal to wait, undergo, suffer." ...~Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

I can wait. How impatient and how self serving I have become in my life of living in the society that we do....of total, immediate self gratification. There is something so much bigger than myself that God is trying to do. He is working and He is moving and how can I be so self focused that I live in total irritability of what I do not have or what has "happened to me" in this life. Do I not see that He has His hand so intricately placed upon my life...upon the life of our family....and is doing such a greater work? I do not know the plans He has for me but I do know that He has them. The world is so much bigger than my own small suffering. I lay for nights absorbed in self pity when I fail to see what He is orchestrating and the work He is seeking to do in our little family. My heart is turned to Him and I am broken. Broken and crushed that I have not listened and my heart has been so hard. My anger standing in the way of what it is He seeks to do. This depression and this anger have lasted for months now......since all of this began in early July. As the children and I learn about different countries, poverty stricken in every way, different cultures, different religions - Hindu, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Animism, I am struck by my own "wealth" and absolutely convicted that we are here at this time in life, raised in a family that has taught me to seek Him, living in a country that allows me the freedom to publicly pursue my relationship with a living God who is very real and at work in our family right now. In my own life as I have searched for truth, finding my own way and trying my best to figure out WHO He is and WHERE He is, I have known Him and I have seen Him. I see Him at work in my own life now, I see Him at work in the lives of our children, I see Him in the mundane of my everyday life, I see Him at work in the life of my husband. I was raised with it "shoved down my throat", if you will, which eventually resulted in me searching it out and seeking to find why it is we do what we do. But having searched the world over and as our children are educated about life beyond our four walls I once again realize just how blessed I am to have found the Life giving source which does sustain me.......if I let Him.

When in life did I become so complacent and so self centered as to demand what I want when I want it? Is not that my job to teach my own children those very virtues...to teach them to suffer...to be willing to place their own desires on hold for the wellbeing of others, to teach them to be patient for God to make His plan known to them, to teach them to be longsuffering? Why, if our little girl is so whole and so perfect in every way after what she has endured, am I not praising His name and exalting Him in everything that I do, instead of focusing on what wrong has been done to us? Why do I continue to stay so angry? Why do I not sing praises to the Lord because I rest in the total security that our sweet baby is growing and being raised within the presence of God Himself?

I have grown impatient over and again. Once the overwhelming grief subsided and my days turned to being overshadowed in sadness I began to turn my focus towards another baby. My heart aches, my arms ache and I know that come March our lives will not be filled with the sweet presence of our baby boy. So sadness eventually turned into a bit of obsession as I became tormented with the thoughts of just how long it will take to get pregnant again........if I get pregnant again. Day after day the loss of this baby has continued on within my body and day after day my heart grew more restless and discontent with the fact that not only had God let the life of this sweet baby slip away but now He has drawn the process of this loss out over many weeks. An average miscarriage lasts about 7 days from beginning to end with the actual passing of the baby taking anywhere from 2-24 hours. And here I sat 2 and then 3 and then 4 weeks into it. We were assured by several different care providers that, though this was not typical, it was not by any means abnormal. So, self pity once again took over along with a huge dose of anger and impatience. Again....why???? Why ME???? Why now? Why after Aubrey? Why after the adoption? Why allow it to turn into this when it could've been just "normal" like everybody else? Weeks passed along with the growing knowledge that it may take months for my body to ever return to normal again. And again, both anger and sadness overwhelmed me.

But through this process my heart is being changed and I know that God is at work. Who am I? And when did I ever begin to demand that my life be so perfect? Where has my willingness to suffer gone....or has it ever existed? Where is the willingness to pick up the cross and know what it is to suffer?

Patience is the converse: the willingness to suffer.

Please, do that in me. Don't I long to know You? I can wait....