Patience

 



Today as I sat waiting as first one, and then a second train went by I thought about the act of waiting.


Nothing unusual here in Goshen where 100-120 trains a day come through with Elkhart Yard connecting Chicago to the many cities of the Northeast.


Train time just has to be built in and when it's neglected we are late to work, appointments or ballgames.  I once sat for most of the first quarter of a football game as a train chose to move forward and backward slowly preventing me from getting to the field where I could hear the loudspeaker amid the clickity -clack of  the train.  Knowing my son was part of the tackles and runs I was hearing did nothing to help my patience.


Sometimes we can take another route and use the overpasses, sometimes we are quite trapped and must simply wait.  


Tonight as I sat there, sliding  my car into  park and flipping through my emails I realized without a deadline it is easier to be patient.  I still wanted to be home, but I had chosen to use my wait time for something productive.  


Not a single time has my being mad or frustrated made the trains go faster.


In Luke 21:19 the Savior counsels, "In your patience possess ye your souls."


Patience is how we become better.  How we become refined.  Patience is blessings.  Patience in answers.  Patience in healing.  Patience in the imperfection of others.  Patience in the imperfection of ourselves. 


Without patience, there is no faith.


Elder Dieter F Uchtdorf continued, "Patience is a process of perfection. The Savior Himself said that in your patience you possess your souls. Or, to use another translation of the Greek text, in your patience you win mastery of your souls.  Patience means to abide in faith, knowing that sometimes it is in the waiting rather than in the receiving that we grow the most. This was true in the time of the Savior. It is true in our time as well, for we are commanded in these latter days to “continue in patience until ye are perfected.”


Trains will keep on coming.  It's up to me how I will wait. 


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