Tell about a time when you experienced patience or a fruitful waiting time in your life. Was someone patient with you or did you offer a patience that surprised you? What does that experience of patience tell you about the character of God
Several years ago, I volunteered with an organization that provides music lessons to school-age children who would not otherwise have access. I taught three brothers who were initially unconvinced that piano lessons could be any fun at all.

I came prepared with games, stickers, and popular tunes to learn. To my relief, the older two had a great time from day one! The youngest one, only six years old at the time, would not touch a single piano key or even take off his mittens.

Weeks went by and my reluctant pupil was still reluctant, no matter what I tried. After a couple of months, we had our first chat at the piano bench - about toy cars of course! Next came the first tap of a piano key. And once he was ready, he was suddenly excited about learning, requesting his favourite songs, joining in on his brothers’ lessons, and asking if there could be piano every day after school.

When I am patient with another person, that patience is often mutual. As I waited for my student to become comfortable, wasn’t he also patient with me as I figured out how to teach him? Maybe he was wondering how long it would take for me to finally get my act together! God has always been very patient with me, but I don’t think this should be one-sided. Perhaps patience is a relationship with God, where mutual and unconditional waiting allows everything to unfold in time.

I did not find it overly difficult to have patience with my young student. After all, he was only little, just learning about the world in his own endearing way. I believe I could have even continued waiting, because he deserved every ounce of patience I could muster. I wonder if God feels the same way when I require an endless amount of patience: “After all, she is only a human…”

Maddy is a parishioner of St. Clement's, North Vancouver.