Patience is a virtue

I am convinced that patience is a learned trait.  Certainly one I never mastered when I was younger, as I had no one to really show me that "patience is a virtue."

When I wanted something I was convinced that I needed it now.  That was what I learned growing up.  If I did not get it, then I learned that showing frustration and anger would usually result in getting you what you wanted in the short term, but I quickly learned that it was never the solution in the long term.

Once I learned, as an adult, that I was adopted, I spent 22 years searching for any information that I could learn about my father, who he was, what happened to him and how his life was without me and my brother.  Some of you will remember from my previous blog posts that we were told that he had passed on.  Unknowingly, I set out on my search with bad information and an incorrect set of facts.  Those two things will usually doom any search or investigation and really play a trick on your patience, or lack thereof.  Then of course there was the cost of pursuing such an investigation that was quick to doom my search when the well went dry at times.  Can we say "frustrating?" 

Remember, I did not know or learn anything other than impatience and finding a way to get what  I wanted and "right now."  It was during the last 22 years where I learned that I could turn this negative behavior into positive perseverance.  This taught me patience and just in the nick of time, as I had someone watching me; my daughter. I certainly did want her going through her young life as I did and I hoped that she would learn that having patience was very important and key to a experiencing a happy and fulfilled life.

Well, patience won out and I did find the information I wanted about my father, as well as something more; he was very much alive and he himself had held out and prayed for the day that my brother and I would want to know him and let him into our lives.  Obviously, he was under the impression that we chose not to know him either.  So not true!

So, the irony of this blog post today is that whether my dad knows it or not, I must have learned patience and perseverance from being a part of him.  You see, he never gave up either and as he told me yesterday when I called to wish him a very emotional and my first "happy father's day," that he had prayed long and hard over the years for this day to come and it did.

The lesson here; never stop believing in the power of patience and perseverance, no matter what.