Today’s Advent challenge is to try to grow our patience. With patience there is room for compassion. With patience there is room for peace… I have a very strong willed infant who is having to take four doses of antibiotics without food every day. The course is meant to finish tomorrow, but the bottle still looks pretty full – perhaps the chemist expects some of it to spat out, or spilled after the medicine spoon has been pushed out of the nurse’s hand. In which case the chemist is right,  a lot of medicine has ended up on the floor. So although this is supposed to be the last day of torture for all concerned, I think it might continue into tomorrow. Patience, patience.

The options to choose for the challenge today are:

• Join the longest queue at the supermarket checkout
• When given an opportunity, let other drivers out in front of you
• Cook a meal from scratch

I cook a meal from scratch everyday and I don’t drive. If I go to the shops I will do number one. But today, I will work on my fraying patience. When I am met by tantrums and ever increasing demands for bribes in exchange for “yucky” medicine, I will try to pray the following:

Dear Lord
Give me the strength to be patient. Give me the confidence to wait and not force things. Help me to believe that what needs to happen will happen by your will.
In Jesus name
Amen.