THE NEW EWE

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'"

Luke 15:4-6

October 6, 2021

LIFE IN THE FOLD:

Have you ever looked up scriptures about waiting and patience? There are a lot!! God knew that His children would struggle with these two things, so made sure that they were well covered in His Word.

I admit that I have struggled with both waiting and patience time and time again. I don't like people to have to wait for me, and I don't like to be kept waiting. I don't like praying, then having to wait for God to answer. No matter the circumstances, I don't like to wait. Period!

I, also, often struggle in the area of patience. Often waiting and patience go hand in hand. I sometimes become impatient with people, with situations, with traffic, with myself, and sometimes even with God. There are those times when God isn't working as fast as I'd like, or things are happening as I think they should, or He allows things to happen to interrupt my life...... and I become impatient. I grow impatient with individuals sometimes; especially when they're not doing what I think they should be doing.

A while back I read something that a minister said that has caused me to change my thinking and to pray about how God needs to work within me and change me. He said that we often pray for patience, when the problem is really a love issue. 1 Corinthians 13:4 says, "Love is patient." He suggested that perhaps we need to begin praying for more love, and when our love capacity expands and grows, then our patience will grow. The root of our impatience is really a lack of love and compassion for others.

So, for a while now I'm been praying that God would expand my capacity to love; that I would have compassion for other people and feel and show love to them. I prayed that having greater love would grow and be seen in my having greater patience. I believe when I begin to love greater, it will overflow into me having more patience, which will affect the area of waiting.

Last week I had the opportunity to put those things into practice. And to be honest, at the time I didn't think, "Oh! This is a test!" It didn't even dawn on me until later how my attitude had changed in those areas.

Last Wednesday morning after getting my nephews kids on the bus, I left to meet another nephew in Arkansas to pick up beef from him. We were meeting about an hour and a half from where I live. I was about halfway there when my husband contacted me saying that the senior facility where his mom lives had contacted him to say that she was on her way to the hospital. He told me to go ahead and get the meat (my nephew already had it loaded in his vehicle and was on his way to meet me), and he would leave work and go to the hospital to be with his mom.

Late that afternoon, I ran to his mom's apartment and got a few things to take to her. I met Jon outside of the ER entrance to hand them off to him; then waited while he went back inside to give them to his mom and checked on her again and made sure that she would be okay if he left.

On Thursday, another family member stopped by to visit Diane. Hospital rules are that a patient is only allowed two visitors during their hospital stay, and it has to be the same two visitors the entire time. Since Jon was with her in ER, he was visitor #1; and the other person became visitor #2. That prevented me from going in, so I was not allowed to visit her during her three day stay.

Thursday evening, I rode with Jon to the hospital while he visited his mom. I sat out in the car, in the parking garage, and waited while he went inside and spent some time with her.

Friday morning, Jon's mom called thinking she perhaps had had a stroke (thank God it wasn't!), and I told her that we would come as soon as we could. We were there by 7:30 and I went inside with Jon just to check and see if perhaps they would allow me in; which it wasn't a life and death situation, so they said no. So I ended up sitting in the car inside a dark parking garage from 7:30 to almost 11:00. The thing is, I didn't get agitated or upset or antsy or frustrated. I texted Jon and told him that I was fine, so to try to stay until he was able to see the doctor and do what he needed to do; and the truth is, I did feel fine. I was at peace and I didn't struggle with the wait or being impatient.

The doctor told Jon's mom that she would be dismissed around noon, so Jon went ahead and came down and we ran to find a restroom and get something to eat. Silly us, we hurried and was back in the parking lot (we parked out in the sunshine that time!) by 11:40. Jon ended up putting his seat back and taking a long nap, and I dozed and read. We got out and walked around a bit. No one had still come to begin the dismissal process with his mom, so we left for another bathroom break. The front light had burned out that morning on one of our signals, so we found an auto parts store and Jon bought new bulbs. It ended up being close to 2:30 before his mom was in the car and we were able to head home.

It wasn't until the next day that the Holy Spirit brought to mind all of the waiting that I'd done the two previous days, and how differently my reaction had been from other circumstances in the past. It was encouraging to see that God was at work in my life and answering my prayer.

In Galatians 5:22, patience is listed as a fruit of the Spirit. We can't just pick and chose which fruit we want to be evident in our life; but each one should be seen in the life of a believer. If we are filled with the Spirit, then we should have "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." These are not the fruits (with an s on the end) of the Spirit, but scripture says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is......." We should have the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control within us.

1 Thessalonians 5:14 says, "We urge you, brothers and sisters, correct the unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone."

Hebrews 12:1 says that we are to, "Lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." The word "patience" in this verse means "endurance". We, as christians, run this race patiently, by persevering through difficulties. We don't give up!

David wrote in Psalms 41:1, "I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry."

Psalms 37:7 tells us to, "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him." We are not only to wait, but we are to wait patiently!

Probably one of the most known scripture about waiting is in Isaiah 40:31: "But they who wait for the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar up with wings as eagles. They will run, and not grow weary. They will walk, and not be faint."

James 5:7 says, "Be patient, until the coming of the Lord."

There are so many, many scriptures regarding waiting and patience! But they are there to give us encouragement and hope and to teach us.

We may not always understand what's going on in the world around us. We may not always understand why people are doing what they are doing; even those whom we love and are close to. We may not always get the answers that we are seeking and longing for, when we want them. In fact, our life may seem as if it's finished and we long for heaven and are tired of waiting for our Father to call us home. We grow weary during the wait. We can even become disheartened.

But one thing that we are never to do, is to give up and stop running our race! We keep putting one foot in front of the other, day after day, and we run the race that our Father has set before us. He knows the number of our days and knows the plans that He has for us. So we wait, with patience, and during that time we draw closer to Him and allow Him to direct our steps and be a light in the dark world around us.

JON'S PERSPECTIVE:

Years ago, I prayed for more patience. I prayed and prayed for patience. But after about 5 minutes I realized it just wasn't in God's plan for me.

Honestly, patience is a lot like strength. It takes exercise. But no one exercises without some kind of motivation. I have to really want to get some strength or work off sugar to do push-ups. Likewise, we need to want to push ourselves to show a little patience before we can improve our ability to feel it.

This past week, I had to keep looking at things from the hospital's perspective. I guess that is a form of love, too, but I didn't think of it that way. The hospital uses 4 digits for the room numbers. The first digit is the floor. I think the second number is a section on that floor. And they still need 2 digits for the room in that section. With a little guess work, I estimate they have around 100 rooms per floor. The hospital has 10 floors, but I know two don't have patient rooms. So that makes somewhere around 800 patients. I didn't get an accurate count, but it looked like Mom's floor had around 100 patients, 2 RNs on the day shift, around 10 orderlies, and several other staff. For each RN to give meds to 60 patients once every 2 hours, they only have about 2 minutes per patient. Hopefully some patients won't need meds that often.

So, each time we had to wait for a nurse or doctor, I remembered back to how overloaded they are. I've heard that nurses in general are quitting the profession. They work 12 hour shifts, sometimes so many days each week that they can't keep and still have a family. So they leave. That makes the work load even harder for those that stay.

I don't even know any of the nurses there, but in understanding their situation, I guess I do show a kind of love for them. And that helped me to show patience. And showing patience can help others to feel patience, too.

ON THE MENEWE:

Stuffed Cabbage Soup

In a large stock pot brown ground beef; drain.

Add a little olive oil to the pan. Saute onion, garlic, and seasoned salt until mixture is aromatic and onions are translucent.

Add cooked ground beef, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and 4 cups chicken stock. Bring to a simmer.

Stir in chopped cabbage, cover pot and cook on medium/low heat for 20 minutes, until cabbage is wilted and softened. Stir in instance rice and cover until rice is ready.

Stir in remaining chicken stock, as needed until desired consistency is reached. Enjoy!

THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER:

My three year old niece is in the 3-year old pre-K program at the school where her dad teaches. She has been somewhat naughty this week and got into trouble at school. When she got home, she told her mom, "My teacher as not nice to me today!" So apparently, in her mind, it wasn't her.... it was her teacher!

THOUGHT TO PONDER:

The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

OUR HEARTFELT THANKS TO YOU:

We love you!

Loretta & Jon

http://www.graysheep.org