Encouragement

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If the fruit of the Spirit is anything like my late Aunt Rosie's ambrosia salad, then patience is the coconut. You see, I hated coconut as a kid. As far as I was concerned, it was about as tantalizing as wood shavings. All the other stuff was okay, though, so I'd pick out the coconut and just eat the fruit I liked.

The same is true with the fruit of the Spirit. I don't want any situations on my plate that call for patience. It's just not as palatable as love, joy, peace, and all those other sweet things that the Lord gives His children, so I try to avoid it as much as possible. Sometimes that tactic works; sometimes it doesn't.

Take last year, for instance, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. A needle biopsy was performed, but was inconclusive. I wouldn't know whether my cancer was non-invasive Stage 0 or invasive Stage 1 until I had my surgery five weeks later. Five weeks? I didn't want to wait five minutes! The doctor was sympathetic, but unyielding: that was the earliest he could work me in on his surgical list. "I'm sorry," he said, patting my shoulder, "but you'll just have to be patient like everyone else."

Oh, yeah? I thought. Well, I don't "do" patience, okay? But just like Aunt Rosie and her wretched ambrosia salad, I had no choice but to try it. "Okay," I said, letting the doctor escort me out of the examination room. "I guess I'll just see you again in five weeks."

All I could do was go home and wait...and wait...and wait. I played over 200 levels of Super Granny on my computer, gave the hall bath a mini-makeover complete with regrouting the tile, painting the walls and cabinetry, and making a new shower curtain and valance. I filled my days with busyness, but time still limped by achingly slow.

When I ran out of projects to do, I started going for long contemplative walks. We live in a small town where it's kind of hard to hide your struggles. People would often stop me and ask how I was doing. Most offered sympathy; more than a few promised to keep me in their prayers.

And somewhere during that anxious time my waiting miraculously morphed into patience. I learned that it's possible to hurry up and wait for something and only succeed in making yourself miserable, or there's the better way, which is to simply trust God and let "the peace that surpasses all understanding...guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7 NKJV) God had given me the opportunity to try something I was convinced I wouldn't like, and to my great surprise I'd found out that it wasn't so bad after all.

As it turned out, my cancer was only Stage 0. After undergoing a round of radiation, my prognosis and subsequent checkups have been good. Praise God! And not necessarily for the obvious reason. I'm actually grateful for having gone through the experience. Really.

Now, that's not to say I'm looking forward to the next time the Lord plops another unsavory situation down on my plate, but at least it won't be quite as hard to swallow because I've learned that patience is an acquired taste. It may seem a bit nasty at first, but over time it just kind of grows on you.

Like Aunt Rosie's ambrosia salad. It's now one of my favorite recipes.

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