A little dose of patience

I truly think that patience is a four letter word to most Christians.  Think about it, how many sermons do you hear on the subject of patience?  Sure the pastor may talk about and use the concept of patience to support a point, but patience is usually never the focal point of a sermon.  Truth is, patience is hard on us humans.  We are inundated with so many commercials that brain wash us into thinking that having patience is the old way of doing things.  We were originally sold on the idea that credit cards were the answer to the problem, or taking out a 2nd and/or 3rd mortgage on the house, but in the end that has gotten most of us nowhere.  In fact, most of us are worse off than when we started.

I speak of all this because Holly and I are enduring a little dose of patience with our daughter Karis.  She is so close to coming home from the NICU, but it seems that every time we get a little excited about what could happen in the next couple of days, those hopes get deflated by one thing or another.  The latest round was centered around the feeding tube.  One of the prerequisites for her coming home is doing 100% of her feeds by bottle or nipple.  For a couple of days we would feed her a little bit by bottle until she fell asleep and then they would put the rest down her feeding tube.  So on Wednesday, Karis' 3 week birthday, Karis pulled out her feeding tube and the nurse said she wouldn't put a new one in unless she proved that she needed one.  The good news is that she showed she didn't need it, but tonight while Holly and I were visiting she had a little relapse.  Now my definition of relapse is that she spit up a portion of her feed.  It wasn't enough to get up in arms over, but enough to become frustrated.  Our hope is that when she starts to do something that she will continue on in this upward trajectory toward "normalcy", whatever that is.  The truth is Karis is a preemie and all of our best intentions, and plans for her to progress need to happen in the right time.  We don't need to bring Karis home and then have to take her back to the hospital a few days or weeks later.

So we need to exercise a little patience.  We have to trust that Karis is in God's hands and that she will progress in the right time and while we are so ready for her to come home, she needs to come home when she is ready.  So please pray for us and our little dose of patience.  I will leave you with Paul's description of the fruit of the Spirit, what we are to model as we become more and more like Christ.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law."  Galatians 5:22-23